Friends and Lovers
by Infinitesimi
Summary: Six years after his disappearence, Edward returns home, but at what cost? The brothers still strive to be reuinted. BEWARE SERIES SPOILERS Rated M for sexual situations. Multiple pairings, including RoyRiza, EdWin, AlWin, and EdHei.
1. Finding the Catch: A Long Awaited Return

**Friends and Lovers**

_**Things you should know: **"Finding the Catch" is a series of chronological events in the current timeline, six years after Edward disappears. All the other chapters take place at various times in the past. This fic contains series spoilers and sexual situations. Please enjoy._

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Finding the Catch: A Long Awaited Return**

The bright light was glaring in his eyes before he even realizes they were open. _It's the light you see when you die_, he thought, briefly convinced he had not survived at all. Slowly the realization came to him that the bright light was sunlight, warm on his face and causing him to squint. He groaned, then flinched at the sound. Apparently he was alive after all. Gradually he became aware of the damp ground beneath him, and the sharp rocks jabbing into his backside. Slowly he turned his body on the ground and dragged himself to a standing position. Where was he?

Grass, dirt, rocks, trees, all familiar things, but which trees? Which grass? Was he in a forest? Not really, he decided. He could hear the noises of a city, or at least a town, and decided to follow them, focusing on getting out of the woods rather than exactly how he got into them in the first place.

He reached a path, which became a small dirt road, that became a small paved road entering a small town. There were people in the town who looked at him oddly, and he looked down at his metal right arm and rolled his sleeve back down. He had rolled it up, he recalled, because he was working on something. He fished his gloves out of his pocket and put them back on. There. Nothing unusual about him now.

Or was there? And furthermore, where was he again? "Excuse me," he called to the passers by. A woman carrying a basket stopped and looked at him expectantly. "what is the name of this town?"

Her expression brightened. "Why, you're in Dillon," she answered cheerfully. "Are you looking for a place to stay? My husband and I run an inn, just there," she pointed, "On the corner."

"Dillon," he said thoughtfully, tapping a finger on his lips. Not somewhere he had ever been, he was sure. But the name was familiar. But familiar from where? He thanked the woman distractedly and continued down the road.

At the cracking sound he spun around. It couldn't have been… He walked back to the crowd he had passed a few steps before. A man stood in the center, holding up a green pitcher. "Anyone else?" he said, in a lilting carnival voice.

"Here, fix this shovel, the handle's broken off!" called a man from the crown. The man in the center took the tool, placed it in the circle at his feet, and crack! came the sound again.

Edward's jaw dropped. "Alchemy," he whispered.

"Amazing, isn't it?" said the woman next to him, nudging him with her elbow.

He spun wildly around, taking in his surroundings. If that was alchemy, then he was… "Home," he said softly. "I'm home."

It didn't take long for him to locate the train station in the small town. "How far am I from Rizembool?" he asked the ticket master.

"I'd say 'bout half a day by train, sir.," the man answered pleasantly. "Would you like a round trip?"

Edward shook his head, grinning widely. "No way. One way, no coming back!"

The man nodded, checking the fare book, and told him, "8500 cenz, sir."

He reached halfway into his pocket before he remembered all his money was in deutschmarks. His face fell for a moment before it brightened again. "I'd like to use my military account."

"Number?" came the automatic response.

Edward paused, then rattled off a string of numbers from somewhere deep in his memory.

The man frowned. "Haven't heard one starting in 215 for years now… got your ident card on you? That one's not gonna be in the book."

The blond drew his eyebrows down. "Ident card?" he repeated. "Cant say that I do."

"What's your name, anyway? You cant use your account unless you have some proof you're really military," the man explained, sounding apologetic.

"Major Edward Elric."

Ed's jaw dropped a second time when the man threw back his head and laughed. "Good one, kid!" he said through his laughter. "Ya had me goin there!"

"I'm not a kid," Ed said, suddenly fierce.

"Fullmetal day was last month!" he man said, still shaking with laughter. "You missed it by three weeks. Everyone was callin themselves Edward Elric."

Ed blinked. Maybe he was dead after all, or transported to yet another alternate reality. However, he had no proof that he was military; his pocket watch had been lost years ago in Central, and the fact remained that he had no cenz with which to buy a ticket. "Which way does the train to Rizembool go, then?" he asked, once the man had stopped laughing.

The ticketmaster pointed down the tracks. "That way, good man."

Ed thanked him and began walking, ignoring the man's coming questions.

"Sir, you aren't going to walk, are you? Sir?"

The man sat in his booth, watching the small figure grow smaller as it followed the tracks in the direction he had pointed. He was limping a little, the man saw, although not badly, and his blond hair swung across his back, side to side with every step. He couldn't have actually been… could he?

Edward had picked up a sturdy stick from along side the tracks, grasping it firmly in his left hand, using it to support his weight. After the first few miles, the stump of his leg had become increasingly sore. He could see the next town in the distance, and there was still plenty of daylight, but he was going to have to stop there. If he remembered correctly, Rizembool was four towns away along the tracks. He glared down at his feet. With that wooden leg, it would take him days.

He squinted up at the sky. First thing he would do when he got home, after tackling his brother and hugging him like he would never let him go, is get himself some proper automail.

Home. He was tired, exhausted even, but he was going home. He thought it would never be possible, and yet, here he was. Finally on his way home.

He was barely aware of his surroundings as he entered the next town, Altenburg, he thought it was called. He was too busy struggling with himself, memories of his home and loved ones rushing up from where he had pushed them down deep within his mind. He must not allow himself to hope falsely, he thought firmly. There was no proof that his sacrifice had worked. There was no proof that Al was really alive.

Neither of them was paying attention to where they were going, yet both were shocked when they collided, first with each other and then with the ground "I'm so sorry," said a voice that made his stomach jump. A hand appeared in front of his face, a hand he knew very well, strong, slightly calloused, and smelling of machine oil. "Can I help you up?"

Slowly he raised his eyes to her, pushing himself up from the ground.

She screamed.

He flinched at the piercing sound and stood up slowly on his good leg. "Winry…" he said slowly.

She screamed again, and he grabbed her by the arm. "Shh, don't scream," he said, his voice soft and low. "It's really me."

Never in all her dreams had she imagined she would run into him here. It was one of the reasons she hadn't wanted to leave Rizembool in the first place. She threw her arms around him, feeling him stiffen, but he slowly brought his arms to circle her waist, one hand coming up to stroke the back of her head. "Where _were _you?" she demanded into his neck.

"Far away," came the vague reply.

She pulled away, studying his face, his eyes, his hair, everything about him. "You grew," she said before she could stop herself.

Ed smirked. "Yeah. People do, you know," he said, taking in the sight of her. Home. He was finally home.

She twined her fingers around his, squeezing his hand tightly.

"So you live here now?" he asked after a moment.

Winry nodded. "Al too, when he's not away-" She stopped when she saw Ed's face.

"Al?" he said, his voice catching in his throat.

"Al," she confirmed.

"Is he… is he-"

She nodded again. "Al is fine. Human. Whole. Ed, not a day goes by that he doesn't try to find you. He never gave up hope." She gave his hand a tug. "Come on, lets get out of the street. Aren't you hungry, Ed? You're always hungry, I'll make us some dinner."

Ed smiled, then pulled her to him hesitantly for a hug. "I'm not dreaming, am I? I'm really here?"

Winry squeezed him tightly, then began to pull him down the sidewalk. Suddenly she stopped. "Ed," she said, a dangerous glint in her eyes.

"Huh?"

She pressed her lips together once, then raged, "You busted up your automail again, didn't you?"

She stopped when she heard his dry laughter. "Nope," he said, shaking his head.

She looked at him through narrow eyes. "You're limping," she accused. "What'd you do to it? Of course you've messed it up."

But he was shaking his head. He lifted his pant leg to show her his prosthetic that was most certainly not automail. Her eyes swung up to his stiff right arm.

"What happened to the arm and leg I made you?" she demanded, seeming to tower over him although he was now the taller one, and shaking the wrench that had not been in her hand minutes earlier.

Edward rubbed the back of his head, wondering if he could escape the inevitable whack he knew was coming. "Ah, I lost them?"


	2. Finding the Catch: The Meaning of Flower

**Friends and Lovers

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Finding the Catch: The Meaning of Flowers

"Is there something going on between those two?" One of Hawkeye's subordinates nudged his companion and nodded towards the blond woman and the dark haired man with the eyepatch. He turned when he heard laughter behind him.

A tall, strongly built man leaned against the wall. "More like was," the man corrected. "The president must have a damn good reason to stick those two together on this mission. God knows neither of them volunteered for it."

"She divorced him, didn't she?"

Havoc nodded. "Couldn't take his cheating," he said smugly.

The man who had asked the original question paled. "Who in their right mind would cheat on _her_?"

"I heard it was over his involvement with one of his subordinates," said another man in a low, conspiratorial voice.

"But Hawkeye was his subordinate, wasn't she?"

The man shrugged. "Not her. Someone else. Someone younger." He grinned wickedly at Havoc. "He's your commanding officer. Tell me, is it true?"

Havoc shrugged. "You mean Mustang and Fullmetal?" he said, but offered no confirmation one way or the other.

"She couldn't take his, ah, _unnatural_ distress over his disappearance is what I heard."

They all heard the _click._

Riza Hawkeye stood before them, her eyes blazing. "The next person who utters one _word_ about the General, Fullmetal, or myself that is not related strictly to military business, will be shot before they realize their mistake." She spun on her heels and exited the room. "And I have excellent hearing," she added from halfway down the hallway.

When she reached her office she hurriedly shut the door and leaned against it, her chin sinking down to her chest. She could do this. It had been two years since she had even seen Roy. They were both professional adults. Everything was going to be fine.

Her eyes focused on the vase of flowers on her desk. Curious, she reached for the card, and heart clenched when she opened it. It was his writing. Scrawling, a little swirly, girly, she had teased him. She recognized it immediately.

_Congratulations on your promotion. I look forward to working with you. _

_Yours always_

_Roy_

"Yours always," she muttered darkly, snatching the flowers from the vase and slamming them into the trashcan. "No one could ever claim you, Roy. Not even me."


	3. Underneath It All

**Friends and Lovers

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Underneath It All

Al only spent maybe a week out of every month in Altenburg, and he heard the whispers. He wondered if Winry heard them too. She must, he realized, although she never said anything to him. She remembered how she had introduced him to her next door neighbor, the first time he visited, when he was twelve and she was eighteen. "This is Alphonse," she had said, smiling proudly. "He's like my little brother," and the woman had smiled and shook his hand. Neither he nor Winry had a home in Rizembool any longer, and she had opened up her automail shop here in Altenburg. So when Al came home from missions, home was where Winry was.

Most of the country knew by now that his brother was gone. _Not gone, just missing_, he told himself. Now that he was fourteen people had, for the most part, stopped mistaking him for Edward. And the people of this small town had begun to pry into his personal life. "She's your sister, did you say?" in response to his holding her hand in the marketplace.

"She's like my sister," he would correct politely, and they would both smile politely and move on.

"Don't waste your intentions on Miss Rockbell," the old women would tell the young men. "Her affections are elsewhere."

She was the best automail mechanic for miles. People would come from as far away as Dublith for her superior work. Most of them didn't know, or didn't care, about her and Alphonse. But every so often, a customer would catch a whisper on the street, and look at her a little differently the next time.

Beneath all the friendliness and caring of the people of Altenburg, there lurked a certain suspiciousness about the newcomers. What kind of healthy, talented, twenty year old woman with a successful business be doing with a fourteen year old kid? Even if the kid was the famous Soul Alchemist. It just didn't sit right with some.


	4. Every Sin

**Every Sin**

The glare of the streetlights on the rain drenched Munich sidewalk seared his brain. He must be drunk after all, he thought.

The man's jet black eyes burned in his recent memory, the feeling of their bodies pressed together making him shudder. The hungry look on the man's face was like, and yet so unlike the one time he had seen that look on the Colonel's. Back then, years ago, he had been too young, too nervous, but here, in this miserable excuse for a world, he knew his nervousness was nothing a glass or two of brandy wouldn't take care of.

He had committed sins the people of this world couldn't even conceive of. What difference could this one make, he had argued to himself. But the act had been empty, as empty as he had found everything in this strange world. Now that he would rather return to his imaginings of what things would have been like with the Colonel, his mind was clouded with the memories of this stranger.

Everyone in his own world had a double here, he knew. The man's name was even Roy, just like Alphonse was called Alphonse. But this Roy was no more his Roy than Al was his Al.

His Roy. Ed stomped a puddle with his good foot, letting the water splash up his pantleg. There had never been a "his Roy." There had never really even been a Roy and him. It was only Colonel Mustang, his commanding officer in a life long gone.

Ed had tried to ignore the way the man did not notice his reactions, did not seem to care if he was hurting him or if he was comfortable. He tried to ignore the man's disgust when he pulled off his shirt, revealing his mechanical arm and scarred body. His eyes traced the cracks in the walls, the patterns on the sheets, refusing to settle on the man who was not Roy. He said nothing when the man silently dressed, covering up that lean, pale body and running a hand through his dark hair in the one gesture that did seem to match his counterpart. "So long, kid," had been his only words out the door.

It would not have been like that with the real Roy. He would not have needed to be drunk to do what he did with the real Roy.

The light was on, he saw, when he opened the door. Alphonse, but not his Alphonse, had been waiting up for him.

Al rose when he heard the door open, and gazed solemnly at his friend. "Ed, were you crying?"

He dragged his hand across his face, flinging raindrops onto the wall next to the door, and shook his head, not yet trusting his voice.

"Are you all right?" came the concerned voice, the same voice as his brother's, coming from the same face.

Ed nodded. "Fine," he whispered, dropping onto the couch.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?" his friend asked, his voice heavy with concern, "That man you've been seeing?" here Alphonse blushed and looked away.

He shook his head. "I'm not seeing him any more," he said quietly.

Al slipped his arm around his friend's thin body, pulling him in towards his side. When Ed did not pull away he rested his chin on Ed's shoulder. "I'm glad," he murmured.

Ed turned slightly to face him, raising his eyebrows at Alphonse.

His friend blushed. "You deserve better," he said simply. "You deserve someone who appreciates you. Some one who will take care of you." Alphonse looked away then. He had not meant to say it like that. He hoped Ed had not taken it the wrong way.

"Al, you take care of me," came his friend's soft voice.

Edward was very quiet about his personal life. He told Alphonse only the barest details of his past: he did not get along with his father, and he had been separated from his younger brother, who he missed very much. He had spent the two years before they met searching for him, with no results. He was interested in science and gradually became obsessed with sending a rocket into space. That was about all Alphonse knew.

Despite the little that he knew, he found himself falling for his friend. It had happened before. His older brother had once teased him that he loved everything either completely or not at all; as soon as he decided someone was worthy of friendship, he fell in love with them. His brother had been teasing him, but Alphonse often thought he was right. And he had always kept his crushes to himself, fearing it would end his friendships.

"You're right, Al, he didn't care about me," he murmured, flicking lint off the knee of his pants. "It's not… he wasn't… it wasn't what I thought it would be. I'm just so lonely here. I miss… everyone."

He could feel Al's heart pounding in his chest. "Ed, don't be lonely." He turned to gaze into his friend's golden eyes. "I'm here."

Ed sighed. "Not the same," he muttered, giving Al an apologetic look.

Al drew his knees up on the couch. "Why isn't it the same?" he asked quietly. "I love you, Ed. I know I'm not handsome and mysterious and charming and dashing and all that stuff you go for, but I love you. Isn't that enough?"

To his surprise Ed laughed. His flesh hand reached up to lightly trace the line of his cheek. "Who told you you weren't handsome and charming, Al?"

Alphonse shrugged. "I know what I look like. I'm not your type."

Ed shook his head. "I don't know what my type is any more," he said miserably, pushing his hand through his soaked bangs. His odd colored eyes fixed on his friend once again. "I think you look perfect, Al."

The younger boy blushed.

Ed winced and rubbed his shoulder. "God, I hate the rain," he said to the ceiling, changing the subject abruptly. "It makes my arm ache," and Al silently moved to sit behind him and rub his sore muscles.


	5. Finding the Catch: Making Real the Unvoi

_Oh thank you thank you for the reveiws! you have no idea how much they mean to me!_

_**Mija: **sorry to be so confusing, let me try to explain a bit: Every chapter that starts with the title "Finding the Catch" takes place in the present. The present is in Amestris, six years after Ed disappeared. The other chapters all take place at random times and places. Chapter three takes place between the end of the anime and the beginning of this story. The thing with Al and Winry being different ages is because Al was restored as being ten years old. so when he was ten, she was sixteen. when he was fourteen she was twenty. in the present time, she is twenty two and he is sixteen. Also, lets see... the Ed and Roy thing. when chapter two talks about Ed and Roy having been involved, its just rumors. Some people suspected something might have been going on. In chapter four (thats a flashback chapter) Ed says that there had never been a "them." ...hope that clears a few things up... :)_

_on to chapter five: we are returning to the present time. Ed has gone home with Winry. we can call this chapter THE Ed and Winry chapter :)_

**Finding the Catch: Making Real the Unvoiced Desire**

"What do you mean there was no such thing as automail?" she demanded. She was sitting across from him at her kitchen table. Ed had insisted that where he had been since his disappearance was too complicated to explain in one night and that he wanted to just enjoy finally being home, but Winry couldn't help asking questions.

He was staring at her. After so many years of seeing her only in dreams and memories, here she was. Proof that he really was home. In a way, he was glad she was the only one with him on his first night home. Winry didn't know much about alchemy, so with all her questions she couldn't really ask exactly what he did to get home.

That was a relief, because every time he tried to think about it, he felt a blinding pain behind his eyes, and it took him several minutes to re-orient himself with the world. He had a suspicion that he hadn't done anything at all, since alchemy didn't exist on that side of the gate, and that it had been something Al did. The fact that Al wasn't home only compounded his concern.

Winry assured him he had only gone away for a few days on military business, and that there was nothing to be concerned about, and that he should be back the next day. Edward wanted to believe her, but he couldn't shake his doubts. He settled for answering her questions.

"Automail doesn't exist, and alchemy doesn't exist. It was as if they had never been discovered," he told her. "They had other technology, like machines that could fly up above the clouds, and we were even trying to build one that could go up in space, but no automail."

He watched her eyes light up, and smiled fondly. Never in his travels had he met a girl anything like her, who got so excited about mechanical parts. "Machines that could fly up into space?" she echoed, squeezing her hands together.

He nodded. "I'll explain how they work, sometime, after Al gets back," he assured her. She would love that, he knew.

Suddenly her face fell. "So you lived all those years without alchemy? And with wooden limbs? All alone?"

Not exactly alone, he thought to himself, seeing Alphonse Heiderich's face in his mind's eye. Was Alphonse looking for him now? He showed her his metal hand, pulling the white glove off. "Not exactly. It's no where near as good as yours-" he watched with amusement as Winry turned the barely-functioning hand over in her own. She grabbed his forearm and pushed his sleeve up, and he co-operated. In Germany it had irritated him when people stared at his prosthetic, wanted to know how far up his arm it went and how it worked, called it a "miracle of modern invention" when he knew perfectly well it was sub-standard. Now he was self conscious for a different reason entirely. "I did the best I could with what I had, but-"

She was staring at him, wide eyed. "Ed, you made this?"

"I had some help," he admitted.

Her face began to show concern. "Is it real automail? Does it connect to your nerves?" she demanded.

He pulled the arm away from her, staring at the metal for a moment before dropping it to his side. "It does, but-"

"Ed, you don't know anything about automail! You mean you let someone who had no idea what they were doing mess with your nervous system?" she raged.

"What else was I supposed to do?" he protested.

She pressed her lips together. "Take your shirt off," she demanded.

He stared at her. "Huh?" was all he could manage.

She dragged him to his feet. "I mean it. Take your shirt off, I need to see exactly what you did!"

He jerked away from her. "Not now, Winry! I just got back, cant you let me relax?" he whined.

She glared at him. "Automail," she said dangerously, "is made and installed by _professionals,_ Ed, and there's a reason for that. It's dangerous! I need to make sure you're okay!"

"It's _fine,_ Winry," he said, irritated, eyes flashing. "I mean, it's not fine, it's a piece of crap, but I've had it for years, and it's not hurting me!" This wasn't exactly true. The arm almost always hurt him, but he had gotten used to it, deciding the pain was worth having two arms to work with rather than one. He spun around, pacing the short length of the kitchen, suddenly self conscious of his limp as well. His leg wasn't even the primitive form of automail his arm was; it was simply a well made wooden leg. "What did you want me to do, Winry? Go around with just one arm? I'm sorry it isn't perfect, but I didn't have you around to put me back together so I had to do it myself!"

When she didn't respond, he turned around again, and saw that she was sitting down with her head in her arms, shaking.

"Winry?" he queried, coming over to her. "you're not crying, are you?"

She lifted her head slowly, her blue eyes rimmed with red. "We thought you were _dead._ We thought we would never see you again," she whispered.

He wrapped his left arm around her awkwardly, pulling her close to him. "But I'm here now. Everything is okay," he said, breathing in the scent of her shampoo mixed with machine oil.

"I'm sorry, Ed. I was just worried," she said into his chest.

"It's okay," he repeated. "You don't have to be worried. Everything is fine now. Look," he directed, sitting down on the edge of the table and beginning to unbutton his shirt one handed. "You can look at it if you want. I just don't want you to cry."

She slid the shirt off his shoulder, examining the part with a mechanic's eye. She began to press her strong fingers into the flesh right where it joined the metal, and saw him flinch but said nothing. "Lift your arm," she commanded, and he did. "Higher," she added, but he shook his head and shrugged. "Bend your elbow," she said next, and obediently he bent it. She took the metal hand in hers, wishing suddenly that it was the one she had made him, so that he could squeeze back with five perfect fingers. "Your hand doesn't work, does it," she asked, not really a question but he shook his head anyway. "This is like what they used a hundred years ago," she said finally. "The kind you see in textbooks. Not even half as advanced as what you had before."

Ed slid down from the table, picking up his shirt. "See?" he said to her. "Everything is okay, Win." He watched her eyes travel over the scars around his shoulder and across his chest. "You're staring," he said gently, after a moment.

"You're beautiful," she responded.

It was not what he expected her to say. He meant to reply _no I'm not,_ but he found himself saying "so are you."

Her large blue eyes began to fill with tears again, and, worried, Ed wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back. "Hey," he said softly. "Don't cry."

Her voice shook when she spoke. "I've dreamed about you coming back for so long. I cant believe you're really here."

Impulsively, he kissed the top of her head, letting the soft strands of her hair tickle his lips.

Winry raised her eyes to him, their blue seeming even brighter when magnified by her tears. Slowly she leaned up and pressed her soft lips into his, feeling him trying to back up and clasping her arms firmly around him so he could not pull away. Finally, tentatively, he began to kiss back, remembering to close his eyes. Home. He was home.

He was in a town he had never been to before, but it was his own world. He was in a house he had never seen before, but the woman he held smelled like home. She was twisting her fingers around his, pulling at him gently. "Ed," she whispered. "Lets go upstairs."

They were awkward together, crawling onto the middle of her bed, holding each other tight, Winry letting her hands run up and down over his body and feeling him shiver at her touch. They had both imagined this moment countless times, but that was years ago, and in their imaginations they never aged.

Edward must be twenty two now, she realized, but as she gazed at him, taking in every detail, she thought he looked older. It wasn't that his clothes were different, or that he was taller, or that his hair had grown, it was the look in his eyes, as if he had seen more years than she had.

They had each imagined they would be each other's firsts, but time had passed, and things had changed. Winry had removed his shirt again, and was beginning to undo his pants as well, but she herself was fully clothed. Hesitantly, Ed slid his left hand under her shirt and over her stomach, slowly inching upwards. "Is this okay?" he whispered.

"Of course," she assured him. "Of course it's okay."

Edward had worried over how to tell her he wasn't sure what he was doing, but Winry seemed perfectly content to take charge, and he let her, basking in the familiarity of his childhood friend. All his self consciousness vanished as she explored his body with her strong hands, soft lips, and worshipful eyes. Suddenly she became everything to him, the only thing he saw, the only thought in his mind, and he pulled her closer, wanting, all at once, what they had both dreamed of long ago.

She's not a virgin, he realized, but that thought, and all others, faded quickly. They did not take notice of the late afternoon sun slanting through the bedroom, tingeing the walls with orange and gold. They did not notice their own voices as they cried out together, the sounds drifting through the otherwise empty house.

She lay across his chest, sheets twined around their bodies, listening to his heavy breathing, dragging a finger down his stomach through the thin film of sweat that covered them. "Love you," she murmured, her eyelids heavy with sleep.

She felt his clumsy metal hand rest lightly on her back; she was laying on the flesh one, she realized. "Mmm," was his tired response.

When Edward woke the room had the blue glow of twilight. His head was throbbing, and he had been dreaming, he first thought, but about what? Winry still lay on top of him, and when the realization hit him he pried himself out from under her, careful not let her wake, and began to pull his clothes out from the tangle of sheets. He hadn't fallen asleep with his prosthetic leg still on in ages, and now it ached where the straps had been cutting into his skin. He stood up unsteadily, taking a few moments to catch his balance and push back the pain in his head. Maybe Winry had some painkillers in the house.

He found the bottle easily enough in the bathroom cabinet, and took two, leaning his head against the cool glass of the mirror. Just how had he gotten home? His brain, beginning to wake up, was struggling for answers.

What had he done? Scenes from before flashed though his mind, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He had slept with his best friend. _How could he?_ They were both emotional at being reunited. Yes, they loved each other, but it was like love between siblings. _God, had he used that argument before! _He felt disgusted with himself, like he had used her in some way, used her to prove that yes, he really was in his own world, mind, soul, and yes, body. She said she had dreamed of his coming home. Was he preying on her dreams then? But, he forced himself to remember, they were his dreams too.

His dreams, he told himself, meant nothing. The guilt pressed down on him, weighting down his already weighted soul. Slowly making his way downstairs, he found a blanket in her hall cabinet and sat down on her couch. He carefully unbuckled the straps that held his leg in place, setting it on the floor and rubbing the sore places on his thigh were it had been digging into the skin. Then he laid back, jamming a cushion over his head in an attempt to stop the pounding, and fell asleep.


	6. The Simplicity of Simple Things

The Simplicity of Simple Things

Riza hummed lightly to herself as she set about preparing the meal. She pulled the large cooking pot down from the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet, the only one he had, it seemed. Checking inside, she rolled her eyes. This wasn't the dust that had gathered in the months Roy had spent recovering. This had taken years to accumulate. Of course the man did not cook. He probably ate out every night, or ordered in. Hell, he probably wined and dined a different woman every night.

She sighed as she turned on the faucet and began to scrub out the pot. After making sure it was sufficiently dust-free she filled it with cold water and set it on the stove. She began to set out the vegetables she had bought at the market: carrot, potato, celery, onion, pulling them from the bag one by one.

"Riza darling, step away from the stove."

Startled, she jumped back, colliding backwards with the man she hadn't realized was standing behind her. He wrapped one arm around her waist, and she tilted her head back, smiling up at him. "Are you offering to cook dinner?" she teased, her brown eyes warm and dancing.

Roy smirked and shook his head, pulling his gloves on. There was a snap! and the burners ignited, flaring up, almost too high, and the room filled with smoke. One by one, each went out until only the one under the pot was left burning, and at a reasonable level. "I didn't want to singe your pretty eyebrows," he told her, but she was laughing and waving at the smoke in the air.

He made his way slowly around the kitchen, leaning heavily on the cane, and dropped gratefully into one of the chairs.

"Sir," she said with mock seriousness. "I think you need to work on your aim." She raised her eyebrows pointedly at the scorch marks on the wall behind the stove.

He leaned back. "Eh, I'll get used to it," he said lightly, catching her around the waist and pulling her in for a quick kiss.


	7. Finding the Catch: Alchemical Equation

**Finding the Catch: Alchemical Equation**

Ed was already awake, sitting at her kitchen table sipping a fresh mug of coffee when she came downstairs the next morning. He looked away when he saw her in the doorway. "I made enough coffee for you, too," he said to the wall.

She jerked the cabinet door open and grabbed the blue mug down from the shelf. Edward had already claimed the red one; the one Al always used when he was home. "I'm surprised you're still here," she said bitterly, facing the window above the sink, not looking at him. "When I woke up I thought you were gone again."

He shook his head, although he knew she wasn't watching him. "I'm sorry," he said under his breath. "We shouldn't have- I shouldn't have-"

She spun around, fixing her narrow blue eyes on him. "What do you mean you shouldn't have?" she demanded.

He dropped his forehead down on his hand. "I'm sorry, Winry," he said again, but her expression nearly stopped him from continuing. "I didn't mean to make you angry with me," he mumbled. "I didn't mean for any of that to happen."

She slammed the mug down on the counter and stormed out of the room without a reply. For a moment Ed sat in shock, but quickly stood up to follow her. "I'm sorry," he called.

She was standing in the middle of the next room and turned again to face him. "You're _sorry?_" she repeated. He wasn't sorry for leaving her bedroom, she realized. He was sorry for the whole thing. "Bastard," she muttered.

He spread his hands in a gesture completely unlike the explosion she was expecting. "Look," he began, "can't we-"

"Don't talk to me, you jerk," she snapped, pushing past him and giving him a shove to the middle of the chest as she flew by, knocking him off balance. "I have work to do," she said on her way out the door.

"Hey," he protested, but she had already slammed the door. Edward slumped down on the couch. He had been home for less than a day, and his homecoming was not going the way he had imagined it so many times. Looking around Winry's house, he saw a few familiar things here and there, but it wasn't the same as the Rockbell home in Rizembool. He supposed he pictured everyone he cared about gathered in one place to greet him: Auntie Pinako, Izumi-sensei, Colonel Mustang, Alphonse…

He began to straighten up in the kitchen; the last thing he needed was Winry coming out of her workshop to yell at him for leaving her place a mess. Rinsing out the coffee pot, he realized he wasn't surprised that Al was with the military now. He had guessed that if he was truly restored, he might have decided to take the State Alchemist exam again. It was perfectly normal, then, if he worked for the military, for Alphonse to be away.

Perfectly normal. There was no reason to be concerned.

Visions of the night before kept flashing behind his eyes; his body remembered the feeling of her, the smoothness of her skin, the scent of her hair, the feel of her hands traveling over him and her large, luminous blue eyes staring into his. Was it possible that Winry was angry with him because she didn't regret what they shared the way he did?

He stared out the window. He had already made a mess of things.

There was a knock at the door, and Ed waited for Winry to come out of her workroom to answer, but when she didn't he guessed she didn't hear. At the second knocking, Ed gave in and opened the door himself.

He stood facing two familiar faces in two familiar uniforms. Trying to place their names, he simply stared, while the man said, "Sorry, is Miss Rockbell at home?"

'She's working," Ed said slowly. They didn't recognize him? He sighed. That was natural, he supposed. After all, he didn't look much like his sixteen year old self anymore. _Ross. Maria Ross,_ was the blue eyed woman's name, he recalled. The man was Denny something.

"I have an important message for her," said the woman.

"Is it about Alphonse?" he demanded abruptly, his heart suddenly pounding.

She eyed him closely. He watched her eyes widen in shock, and she whispered, "It cant be… Edward?"

He grinned at being recognized, although worry was beginning to press in on him. "Hello, ah, Miss Ross," he said, not knowing what her rank might be after so much time.

She grabbed him in a hug. "Where have you been? Everyone said you were dead!" she cried. She let him go, eyeing him once more. "You certainly grew," she added, and he frowned.

"Of course I grew," he said sharply. "No adult is less than five feet tall."

Her blue eyes danced as she exchanged glances with the man beside her. "How long have you been back?" she asked next.

"Since yesterday," he said, still leaning in the doorway. His face became serious again. "You are here about Alphonse, aren't you?"

Her expression matched his. "Edward, perhaps you should get Miss Rockbell."


	8. Finding the Catch: Distribution of Mista

**Mija:** dont cry too much for Al, he's got a big part in the story!

**Dreamie:** yep, story's finnished. 35 (short) chapters. I update every day i can get to the computer. btw, thanks to everyone for the comments! i love comments!

**Finding the Catch: Distribution of Mistakes**

"Is he really here?" came a familiar voice from the doorway. Ed stopped his pacing of Winry's living room and turned to face the yet to be visible voice.

"I don't think he really knows how he got here," Winry's voice said quietly. "But I told him Alphonse was just on some military business a few towns away. You don't think he-"

"Alphonse never arrived there. His body was found in Ishbal by some government relief workers."

He heard Winry's muffled cry through the walls.

"His body?" Edward called out, alarmed, rushing into the kitchen, coming face to face with Riza Hawkeye. "What do you mean? Is Al okay?"

Riza brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face, her eyes quickly taking in the sight of the boy she had not seen in six years. Before she could ask any questions, she had to settle his fears. "Al is being taken to a hospital in East City," she said swiftly. "I just spoke to our contacts in Ishbal. General Mustang has already ordered an investigation." She gazed at him, taking in his unusual clothes and his familiar gold hair and eyes. "Welcome home, Edward," she said then.

He nodded. "Hello, Lieutenant," he responded.

"It's General now, but you can call me Riza, you know," she said gently. "We're both adults."

"What's wrong with Al?" he demanded. "What was my brother doing in Ishbal?"

Riza put her hand to her forehead and sighed. "I don't know any more than what I just told you," she said, resignedly. "As soon as any information comes in, I'll tell you."

"I'll make us some tea," Winry offered hollowly, silently putting the kettle on the stove.

Ed saw the worry etched clearly in her face. "You can sit down, Winry, I'll do it," he offered, and watched her sit gratefully down in one of the chairs.

_Thank God Alphonse hadn't disappeared,_ was the thought echoing through everyone's mind.

There was another knock on the door, and Edward set the lid on the kettle and pushed aside Winry's yellow curtains to look out the window. His heart skipped a beat. "It's Roy," he said, surprised. He didn't turn around to see Riza flinch, wasting no time in opening the door for him.

A large black patch covered Roy's eye and the upper side of his face, but with that exception and a bit more decoration on his uniform, he looked much the same as Ed remembered.

"Fullmetal," he said, his remaining eye gleaming sharply.

"Did you hear anything about Alphonse?" Ed demanded, trying to head off any sarcastic comments that might have been forthcoming.He moved aside, motioning for Roy to come in.

He shook his head grimly. "He's being transported to a hospital in East City. He's in a coma. That's all." He nodded distractedly towards Winry and Riza. "Ladies, hello."

"Hello, sir," Riza said tightly, looking pointedly away.

Winry glanced at her sympathetically.

_Both Hawkeye and Mustang were Generals now? But that meant that she wasn't working under him any more. If they were both Generals, they probably weren't even working together any more. _Edward was acutely aware of the tensions between the two, and wondered if Roy could tell that something was wrong between himself and Winry.

"Miss Rockbell," Roy began, his tone professional, "If Alphonse said anything at all to you that might-"

But Winry was shaking her head miserably. "He told me he was on a routine investigation and would be back in a few days. I had no reason not to believe him," she said sadly.

"Was there anything in his behavior before he left that might have indicated-"

"No, there was nothing, sir," Winry assured him.

The General turned his piercing, one eyed gaze on Edward at last, and said, "Then the answer, I believe, lies with you, Fullmetal."

"I want to go to East City," Ed said intensely, his eyes bright. "I want to see my brother."

"That is not an answer."

"Of course you can."

Mustang and Hawkeye both responded at the same time, then turned and glared at eachother. Edward turned to face Hawkeye. "What time does the next train leave?" he demanded.

"In four hours. I've already arranged everything; a car is coming to take us to the station," she assured him, her voice strong and authoritative, not really matching the pained expression behind her eyes. She twisted the teacup around in her hands.

"If you go to East City, Fullmetal," Roy warned, "The military will be waiting for you."

Riza banged her cup down on the table harder than she meant to and shot a dangerous look in his direction. "What have you done?" she demanded, accusations thick in her voice.

Roy threw up his hands, exasperated. "Nothing," he said haughtily. "The rumors of his return spread fast, and the President ordered an investigation." He turned to Ed. "If you're not dead, Fullmetal, which I can see that you're not, the military considers you a deserter."

"I don't care," Ed said darkly. "I want to see my brother."

The man lowered his voice. "I know you do," he said quietly. "But what it is the two of you did to see each other again? You were gone," Roy said firmly. "We left no stone unturned. You were dead, there was no other way Alphonse could have been restored. You can tell me what happened. I'll keep your secret, like I always have."

Ed clutched his head, struck by the blinding pain that seized his brain and began pressing in like a vice.


	9. Doubtful Direction

**Doubtful Direction**

She had stopped being startled every time she saw Al. She was growing used to the way he resembled Ed. After all, they were brothers. Even if they didn't look much alike when they were kids, it made sense that they would look more alike as they grew older. Or, at least, as Al grew older.

He was sitting, cross-legged, on her couch, nose buried in an alchemy book, when she came pounding down the stairs. When he heard her heavy footsteps he looked up, grey eyes serious, and smiled serenely at her. She gave his bronze ponytail a gentle tug as she passed and continued into the workshop.

Ed was not someone they talked about. Ed was not someone Alphonse spoke about to anyone. At first, he had been all questions and eager ears, but one day, suddenly, he had refused to hear any more. He couldn't remember, he said, and that was that. It was time to move forward. And move forward he did, becoming a State Alchemist, like Ed had. Growing his hair out, like Ed had. He had even taken to wearing Ed's old red coat with the flamel on the back of it.

There had been a period of time when the people of Amestris mistook him for Ed. There had been rumors that he and Ed were really the same person, and that the suit of armor that followed Ed around and claimed to be Alphonse was just an elaborate ruse. That was the closest any rumors got to the truth: that the armor had been empty all those years.

But Winry knew he was not Ed. She knew, every time she touched him, that he was not Ed. When she held his two flesh hands in hers, when she looked into his wide grey eyes, she knew he was not Ed. She did not hold him close in the evenings to try to fend off his nightmares because she thought he was Ed, or because she wished he was Ed.

Their relationship, which progressed hesitantly and innocently past friendship, past sibling-like love, was not built on her feelings for the brother who was years since gone.

It wasn't.


	10. Unsatisfactory

**Unsatisfactory **

The cocktail napkin filled her with a sick kind of dread. It had happened at last.

She crumbled the thin tissue in her fist and gave the dresser drawer a shove closed. She didn't know what was worse: the fact that Roy was hiding things from her or the fact that she was acting like a jealous housewife.

She felt like she was watching someone else, a jealous woman with blonde hair and brown eyes (someone else because she wasn't a jealous woman. If she was jealous, she couldn't have tolerated Roy's flirting with everything that breathed all those years that she worked with him) storm into the den and shove the crumpled napkin under her lover's nose, demanding, "Who's Luisa?"

Roy showed no surprise, his single eye did not widen, his pale cheeks did not blush, he simply folded the paper he was reading and looked up at her. "She's a waitress at the pub around the corner," he said calmly.

"What's her number doing in your underwear drawer?" she asked hotly, hands on her hips.

Roy simply smirked. "And what were you doing in my underwear drawer?"

Riza felt her face redden, with frustration, not embarrassment. "I was putting away your wash," she said tightly.

Her lover shrugged, re-opening his paper and going back to reading. "Its not like I called her, Riza, what's the big deal?"

She stood there, fuming. "You shouldn't have taken it in the first place," she replied. "You should have given it back to her and told her you were not available."

Roy looked up again. "What, and ruin my reputation?" he asked, his tone still playful.

"Your reputation," she began, the darkness in her voice building with every word, "should be one of a _married_ man, who is utterly _devoted_ to his wife, not because he fears her impeccable skill with a pistol but because she is the love of his life," she said angrily, spinning on her heals and storming out of the room.

"Riza," came his concerned voice. She heard him put his paper down and follow her. "You aren't really angry, are you?"

She was standing at the hall window, looking out over the streets of Central. "You used to tell me stories about the silly women who still chased after you, even though they knew you were married, and how you turned them all down," she said quietly. "Those stories stopped ages ago. Now I find phone numbers in your underwear drawer and your shirts smell like perfume."

He slipped an arm around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder, letting his warm breath tickle the side of her neck. "But you're the only one I love," he murmured.

She twisted around, staring into the face of her husband. "Then you shouldn't still be chasing after every attractive young thing that crosses your path," she said coldly.

Roy sighed. "I'm not, Riza, believe me, I'm not," he assured her. "Most of it was only ever an act, anyway. An act or a game."

She shook her head. "Love isn't a game, Roy."

He was silent, tightening his grip around her, as if he suddenly realized how bothered she was and how possible it was that she could walk out of his life and never return.

"Every day I have to deal with the rumors," she said after several minutes passed. "Some well-meaning co worker always tries to fill me in on your latest escapades, you were seen with so and so at the wherever, as if I don't already know."

"People talk," he said, his voice urgent. "That doesn't mean there's any truth to it. I see a lot of people every day, I interact with all kinds of people, it's my job. Sometimes they are attractive young women. Don't believe what spiteful people tell you. There have always been rumors about me, don't start believing them now," he pleaded.

Her eyes narrowed. "What about the rumors about you and Edward?"

She watched the color drain from his face. She felt a cold surge of triumph that bothered her. This is what finally got to him?

"There was never anything between myself and Fullmetal," he said shortly. "He was my subordinate, that's all."

"Funny, that's what you told people about me too," she snapped, taking in the shocked look on his face. "Oh come on, Roy, I saw the two of you at that party. I saw the same thing everyone saw, and drew the same conclusions. How can you deny it?"

"I- nothing happened!" he stammered. "He was a child! I would never-" He drew himself up and took a deep breath. "What does it matter anyway?" he demanded. "That was years ago, years before we were married, years before we were even together. Why bring that up now?"

She was looking at him levelly, her rich brown eyes boring holes through his heart. "I need to be alone right now," she said firmly, opening the closet and taking out her coat. "Don't wait up for me."

After she left he collapsed back in his chair in the den, swatting the paper he had been reading to the floor. If he wanted to go after her, he knew, he could. She went to the shooting range at the military headquarters, that's where she always went when they fought. He used to go after her, and they would make up right there, giving a bit of a show to anyone else who happened to be using the facility, before someone inevitably shouted "Get a room!" and they would blush together and return home to finish what they started.

Roy stood up, and walked purposefully into the bedroom and jerked open the drawer that had caused so much trouble. In the back, behind the socks, he found his little black book. Regarding it for a few moments, he tossed it on the dresser. That book was legendary. He picked up the gloves that were folded neatly next to it, and drew them over his slender hands. With a snap! the pages were nothing but thin sheets of crumbling ash, and there would always be a faint scorch mark in the wood of the dresser.


	11. Finding the Catch: Balancing Act

Thanks as always for the reviews! I'm so happy people are enjoying this story!

**Camudekyu: **thanks so much for the reviews you gave me, they really mean a lot coming from you because I absolutely adore your Ed/Win story. So, you're wondering what did happen at that party? Good. All will be explained in good time, my dear, all in good time 

**Nozomi Shio: **wow, the best "Ed comes back" story ever? #is ever so flattered# thank you!

**Finding the Catch: Balancing Act**

Ed was not prepared for the shock he received upon seeing his brother for the first time in… fifteen years, was it? He hadn't realized it, but he had been picturing Alphonse Heiderich when he thought of his brother lying in the hospital.

Roy had declared Edward's arrival at the hospital in East City to be a top secret military event, hoping to delay any rumors that might get back to the president. By Roy's orders, Alphonse was already being cared for in an empty wing of the hospital, so thus far, Ed's presence had gone undetected.

Edward demanded to be the first to see his brother, and insisted that he go in alone, and without further discussion he pushed past the other three, pulling the door closed behind him. Roy paced the long hallway restlessly, uncomfortable with sitting outside the room with Winry and Riza, and troubled greatly by the revelation that Edward did not know how he had been restored to his own world. The two blonde women were having an intense conversation, and he did not wish to intrude.

Riza and Winry had quickly progressed passed stiff pleasantries. It had been several years since they had seen each other; in fact, it was since Riza had requested to be transferred out of Central. She now operated out of East City, and clearly resented Roy's commandeering of the situation that was unfolding on territory that was obviously part of her jurisdiction. Winry was sympathetic to the tensions between the two of them, and tactfully did not ask any questions, although she knew no more than that they were divorced, and that the rumors stated she divorced him because he was cheating on her.

Winry was staring at the closed door to Al's room. "I just want to see him," she said again. "If I can just see him, have some proof that he's alive-"

"He's alive, Winry," Riza interrupted. "The doctors said his body is fine, and that the may wake up any day. Perhaps he just needs to hear his brother's voice," she said soothingly.

"It can't be a coincidence that Ed's back and Al's hurt," she protested. "Al did something, I know he did." She shook her head. "He's probably been planning it for a while, and never said anything because he didn't want anyone to try to stop him." Tears began to squeeze from the corners of her eyes, and she made no effort to brush them away. She glanced at the door once more. "I just want to see him."

Edward leaned back against the door, feeling its solid presence in what was quickly seeming more and more unreal. His brother, not his brother's double, but _his brother_ lay, as if asleep, hooked up to several machines beside his bed. Carefully, hesitantly, he sat down beside the bed, studying every detail of his brother's face, unconsciously comparing it to Alphonse Heiderich's.

His brother was smaller, younger looking than the Alphonse in Germany. His skin was more tanned, like he remembered his mother's looking long ago. Perhaps that was the key difference, he mused. There was a cast to his brother's features that reminded him of his mother in a way that Alphonse Heiderich's never had. He traced a careful finger over his brother's smooth cheek and brushed it through his bronze colored bangs. He had never imagined Alphonse would grow his hair out, but as he moved it absently across the pillow, he decided it suited him. "Al," he whispered. "Wake up. It's me. I'm home."

His heart thundered in his chest, but there was no change in his brother's heavy breathing.

"Oh Al, please, please be all right," he begged. "Please don't have done anything stupid. Your life's more important than mine, what were you thinking?" He shook his brother's shoulder a little roughly, and bronze eyelashes fluttered, revealing dusky grey eyes.

Edward stared. "Al?" he queried, his breaths coming in ragged gasps, but the eyes never focused. "Al!" he said forcefully, waving a hand desperately before his brother's face, but he did not so much as blink. "Oh no," he breathed softly. "Oh no, Al, no," he protested, feeling his stomach clench in a cold knot of dread. Alphonse was fine, he was right there in front of him. He had waited for this moment for over half of his lifetime. He could wait a little longer for Al to wake up. He was going to wake up.

He hadn't realized he had crawled onto the bed with his brother, wrapped his arms around him, buried his face in his brother's soft hair. He didn't even realize he was crying until he saw the wetness spread over his brother's hospital gown.

Nearly an hour later, Winry jumped at the sound of the door opening. She stood up urgently, her eyes questioning her best friend without speaking.

"He opened his eyes," Edward told her, his tone flat.

She clasped her hands together. "That's wonderful," she exclaimed. "I knew he would be all right! I'll never forgive him for scaring us all like that, though!" She felt a hand on her shoulder, stopping her in the doorway.

She turned to stare into Ed's red rimmed eyes. "He's not there, Win," he said, his voice low, his expression unreadable. "His eyes are open. But he isn't there."


	12. The Subtleties of Wanting

_**Camudekyu: **Thanks!_

_**Fayr Warning: **Ciao  Thanks ever so much. Telling me that my story is the best "Ed comes home" story certainly makes up for reading without reviewing, hehe._

_**Abstractication, Blurred3883 and Edward Elric Big Brother: **Thank you. Reviews are becoming like crack to me you see :P_

_**Everyone:** I know I said that this fic is already written, so it seems like there's really no excuse for not posting a chap every few days… but this one is THE Ed/Al H chapter and I've been re-working it a bit, cause after not reading it for a few weeks and then reading it again, it seemed a little off to me. So then, I started working on the next chapter of my other post series fic, "Mirage," from which I had been suffering writer's block on for like a month now (which is why I began writing this one, which, ironically enough, I wrote in two days.) Also, I know I said this fic has 35 chapters, but I might have to add a 36th… not sure yet… lalala… enjoy._

**The Subtleties of Wanting**

"Another," Alphonse Heiderich called out in his brother's voice.

Ed shook his head in a wordless protest, the room was already beginning to blur, but another tall mug had already appeared before him. "I'm drunk already, Al," he stated needlessly, his cheeks flushed with alcohol and excitement.

"Psh, you're such a lightweight," his friend said, laughing, downing half the beer he had just set down in front of him. "There, is that better?"

"We're not going to get any work done tomorrow," Ed concluded, and Al laughed again.

"And now that you've accepted that, drink up," he urged, nudging the now half-empty mug towards the blonde. "We're celebrating. Come on, Ed, I'm sure, deep down, you know how to have fun." Al's blue eyes glowed in the dim lighting of the bar, and Ed smiled at him, taking a gulp of the bitter liquid so many of these Germans favored. "See?" Alphonse teased. "I knew you could do it."

Edward stared at his friend, taking in the perfection of his body, the same perfection he hoped beyond hope he had given his brother. The two became blurred in his alcohol-tinged mind's eye: his ten year old brother and his twenty year old friend. Was this what Al would look like as a grown man?

The half beer in front of him was gone suddenly, although he couldn't remember doing more than sipping it, and another appeared, and he pushed it away, laughing. "Come on, Al, I'm gonna be sick if I drink any more."

"You wont be sick," Al promised him. "You've got to get used to celebrating like this. When we finally get our rocket built, we'll be famous, and we'll be celebrating with every well-known scientist in Europe!" Al spun around on his barstool, spilling some of his own drink.

"Sure," Ed agreed, banging his glass down harder than he meant to. "We'll be the first men ever to go up into space." _But only one of us will return,_ he couldn't help but adding silently. Shaking the thought from his mind, he took another gulp of beer and continued to stare at his friend. "You have blue eyes," he said, not realizing at first that he spoke out loud.

Al just laughed. "So I do," he agreed.

"My brother's are grey."

They sat, locked in each other's gaze for a moment, and before Ed could look away Alphonse had leaned toward him and pressed his warm lips to his own, once, quickly, and a holler went up around the bar. "I'm not your brother," Al whispered, and even in the loud roar of the voices around them his voice was perfectly clear in Ed's ear. He licked his lips, pressed them together, and searched Ed's face for some sign of rejection but found none.

"I know," came the response.

Al was looking around, meeting the stares he had drawn by kissing his friend in public. The bartender smiled kindly at him from behind the counter. "Maybe you boys have had a bit to much to drink, eh?" he suggested helpfully, and Al smiled weakly.

He hopped down from the barstool, draining the last of the amber liquid in his mug. "Ed, lets go home," he said quietly, suddenly wanting to be away from all the staring eyes of the bar's patrons.

Ed slid off the stool and stumbled a bit after Al, stopping to catch his balance and then following him out into the Munich night. He faltered again a few steps out of the bar, and Al slowed his pace, concerned. "You all right?" he asked.

"'M fine," Ed mumbled, stumbling over an irregularity of the sidewalk and colliding hard with the ground.

Al knelt down and slipped an arm around his friend's waist, hauling him to his feet, trying to imagine what it must be like to try to walk drunk on a wooden leg.

"'S not my leg," Ed said defensively, as if he had read Al's mind. "It's the ground, it keeps moving."

Al laughed at that, the sound echoing through the brisk night air. He let Ed sling his arm around his shoulders, and they walked arm and arm like that the few blocks back to their apartment. Al's heart was racing. Ed had not pushed him away. Was it possible…?

Once inside Ed pressed him up against the closed door, kissing him fervently, breaking away only to catch his breath.

He began pulling at the buttons of Al's shirt and slid it off in one fluid motion, running his hand over his friend's smooth chest and across his stomach, marveling at the perfection of skin stretched over muscle, rubbing his thumb across a nipple and feeling Al shudder.

When he realized Alphonse was unbuttoning his own shirt he pulled away stiffly, clutching it closed over his chest but was completely unprepared for the hurt expression that settled in the other boy's eyes. "Sorry," he whispered.

"It's okay," Al said hesitantly. "We don't have to do this if you don't want to." Ed had certainly seemed like he wanted this, but Al had made that mistake before. They had both had quite a bit to drink, and Al couldn't bear it if Ed woke up the next morning regretting anything that happened that night.

"No," came Ed's voice, soft and low. "I want to." His gold eyes burned with- something, Alphonse couldn't discern exactly what.

"Well?" Al queried, searching his friend's gold eyes for the source of his apparent discomfort. "You're not shy, are you?"

Ed ducked his head, his fringe of bangs momentarily obscuring his face. "No, I'm not shy," he said quietly, not raising his eyes. He was unable to pinpoint what it was, exactly, that he did not want Alphonse to see. He knew Al was aware of his false limbs, it was a difficult thing to hide, after all. He couldn't imagine anyone finding his body attractive, broken and damaged as he was, but that wasn't what made him hesitate.

He sighed and shrugged out of the shirt, letting it drop to the floor, revealing his body for what it really was: not whole, the body of a sinner. His pride was nearly unable to bear the sympathetic look in his not-brother's eyes as he brushed a gentle hand over the metal shoulder, whispering, "It's all right, Ed. Really, it is."

Alphonse Heiderich was not his brother, and in this moment, he felt the difference more than he ever had in the two years he had known him. His brother knew the pain he had gone through, losing part of himself, because he had gone through the same pain. His brother knew the shame he felt, not over his missing limbs but over what he had done to lose them in the first place, because he felt the same shame. This Alphonse might tell him it's all right, but Ed could never even explain to him why it wasn't. This Alphonse was blissfully ignorant of the extent of the sin one person could commit.

This Alphonse was everything his brother should have been. Perhaps this was part of his punishment, part of his hell, to see every day the life his brother should have had: unmarked, perfect. "Al, you're perfect, Al," he breathed, burying his face in his friend's neck, letting his breath slide over the smooth skin, because that was all he could say, really. This Alphonse would never know the truth.

"So are you," this Alphonse said, his voice genuine and sincere.

"Don't be stupid," he mumbled into Al's hair, letting his fingers slide over the top of his head, down the back of his neck, across his back, everywhere he could reach.

Al pulled away so he could look his friend in the eyes. "You're perfect for me," he whispered.


	13. Finding the Catch: Shades of Distance

_**Everyone:** posting chapters 13 AND 14 today (but 14 is pretty short) and then wont be posting any more for a few days. changing internet providers, and unfortunatly will be without a connection for a yet undetermined amount of time (boooo.) _

_**MusicalRileyChan:** ahhha big mac... that would be nice, wouldn't it? thanks also!_

_**Eleventy-nine**: thanks_

_**KuroiHi:** uh, there's no need to do anything at all with that bat #ducks# you will find out about Alphonse in due time, my dear, all in due time. but for now, i will repeat that Alphonse has a big part in the story, and also... if he isnt there, he has to be somewhere, doesnt he?_

_**Abstractication: **welcome. now you can leave reveiws for people who dont accept annons :) its ok that you read it at 2:30 in the morning. that might actually help, cause i think i wrote it at 2:30 in the morning as well._

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* * *

Finding the Catch: Shades of Distance**

She backed up after passing the door to Al's study, the sight of Ed sitting at Al's desk poring over Al's book catching her by surprise. She stood in the doorway for a moment thinking it was odd how this time, she nearly mistook the older brother for the younger one.

Al was sleeping in his room, or doing what she and Ed called sleeping: his eyes were closed. She hesitated to believe he was really asleep, because even when his eyes were open, neither of them could call it _awake._ "Ed," she called softly from the doorway.

_"His soul isn't there anymore," Ed had told her. She had suspected that he knew more than the doctors about what was wrong with Al, but she hadn't expected that to be his answer. "That's what he gave the gate as equivalent trade. That's why he isn't responding to anything."_

_She had gasped. "But- how could he choose something like that?" she had protested in disbelief._

"_Maybe he didn't choose. Maybe the gate just took whatever it saw fit," Ed had suggested. _

"_So," Winry had continued, after a moment's thought. "Now his soul is trapped in the gate, instead of his body?"_

_The look in Ed's eyes had told her that perhaps he believed something different, but all he had said was, "Maybe."_

"Do you want something to eat?" she asked.

She watched him look up from Al's books and face her, his eyes refocusing slowly. "In a minute, Win," he said distractedly.

She put her hand on her hip. "Ed, you said that two hours ago. I can't believe I have to keep after you to eat! What ever did you do… wherever you were… before?" she trailed off, faltering in her accusation, picturing too late her best friend pouring over books in the same fashion in a foreign world, searching for a way home to his little brother.

Something flashed over his face, behind his eyes, but was gone before she could interpret it. "Leave me alone, will ya? I said in a minute!" he snapped angrily, turning his back to her and flipping the page in front of him sharper than necessary.

Whack.

He clutched the back of his head. "What the _hell,_ Winry?" he demanded, furious.

"Letting yourself starve to death is not doing anything to help Al!" she raged, waving her wrench in his face.

He stood up so their eyes were level, and snapped, "Fine," and stomped out of the room and down the stairs.

"Ed," she called after him, following him into the kitchen, "I don't want to fight with you-"

He jerked open one of the cabinets and grabbed a jar of peanut butter. "We're not fighting," he muttered, not looking at her. "You're nagging."

At a loss for a response, she watched him consider the jar for a moment, then sit down and press it between his knees, using his left hand to try to twist off the cap. Winry reached between his legs and snatched the jar away, opening it with an easy twist of her hands and shoving it back at him

"Thanks, but I can handle a jar myself, you know," he said sharply, setting it down on the counter and hunting now for the bread.

"I can make you new automail," she said in a small voice. "I've had my own business for three years now, and I've learned so much since the last arm and leg I made you- you wouldn't have to pay me of course," she added quickly.

He turned away from his sandwich, seeming to see her for the first time. His dark gold eyebrows drew together. "I've lived like this a long time," he said finally. "I'm used to it. I can't go through surgery like that now, what if Al wakes up and I'm unconscious and in pain?" Folding the bread over, he took a bite, not looking away from her. _When Al is all right, then I'll take care of myself, _were his unspoken words.

"You should let me get a closer look at your arm," she pushed. "Maybe I can get it working a little better, try to get some movement in the fingers?" she offered hopefully.

He pressed his lips together, seeming to be debating on whether or not to allow this of himself. "Later," he said finally, turning to go back upstairs, sandwich in hand. "I'm in the middle of something right now."

_It wasn't even her that he confided his theories in. She had merely overheard him telling General Mustang that the only way Al could come back was on his own._

"_The first time I was in Germany," he had said, "only my soul crossed over. I assume my body was here, like Al's is now."_

"_How did you get back the first time?" Roy had asked him. Winry stood behind the door, listening intently._

_She could not see them, so she did not see the pain in Edward's face. "It doesn't matter," he said shortly. "It wasn't the only way. If Al knew enough to try a human transmutation again, he must be able to figure out how to get back." There was silence. "I hope he can figure out how to get back."_

That evening she left her workshop to find that the radio in her living room had been left on. She switched it off before she noticed the figure sprawled out on her couch, right arm dangling off the edge, left crossed over the eyes. "Why are you sleeping in here, Ed?" she asked, not expecting him to hear or answer her. Ever since they had brought Al home he had been sleeping in his brother's bed with him, in case he woke up during the night.

"I'm not sleeping," came the flat response, but he still did not move.

She stood at the foot of the couch, staring down at him. "What are you doing then?"

He shifted his forearm up a few inches, revealing his eyes to her. "Listening to the radio, actually," he said with a smirk, and sat up.

"Oh." She reached over and switched it back on before she sat down next to him. "You're hair's down," she observed, surprised.

He ran his hand through the blond strands, sliding the mess of it over his shoulder, and shrugged, raising his eyebrows at her.

She was nearer to him than she had been ever since the night he came home. His distance could have been due to the awkwardness that had settled over them when they were alone, but she felt none of that now, only an easy silence. She had touched him so freely before, but now she hesitated, afraid to break what felt like a truce that had seemed to develop between them. "Ed?" she asked, sliding just an inch closer. "Could I braid your hair?"

He combed his fingers through the fall of gold again, feeling them catch in the tangles, and considered this for a moment. "You'd have to brush it first," he said finally, as if brushing his hair was a chore she would never agree to.

Her purse was hanging by the front door, and she fetched her brush from there, not wanting to leave the room and risk the chance of Ed being gone when she returned. They sat, not speaking, the music from the radio washing over them as she carefully pulled through the knotted strands of his hair until it was smooth again, rippling through her fingers like the silk she remembered.

When she tied off the end of the braid, she watched him run his hand over the thick chord, dropping it over his shoulder and glancing down at it. "Thanks, Winry," he said, pleased. She didn't know if he was thinking about the last time she braided his hair, six years ago, the last time she saw him before he died- _disappeared, _she corrected herself hastily. He looked, she realized suddenly, nothing like the boy who had left her, even with his hair braided. Where ever he was, some strange place called Germany, had changed him irreversibly. _Or perhaps,_ she thought to herself, _he just grew up._

Her heart flipped in her stomach when the song on the radio changed, and her expression must have shown it, because Edward looked at her curiously. She reached across him to turn up the volume and sighed. "This song- I really love this song."

He turned away so she would not see him roll his eyes. It was a slow, sappy ballad. He'd never heard it before, of course, but it sounded like a girl's song. Of course she would like something like that. He stood, extending his hand to her. "Then let's dance," he offered, and laughed at her shocked expression.

She glanced down at his feet. "Can you dance?" she asked hesitantly.

His lips curled up in a smile, neither bitter nor embarrassed. "Eh, not really," he admitted easily. "But this is a slow song, and there's no one here to watch. I'll give it a try. For you," he added.

A surge of relief went through her as she took his hand. _Everything was okay between them now,_ she thought happily, wrapping her arms around his neck and feeling his hands, one flesh and one metal, settle on her waist. They did not so much dance as simply cling to each other, letting the cadence of the music swirl around them. Winry wished she could take this moment, the stillness of the house in the evening, the safety of Edward's embrace, the feeling of his hair between her fingers, and preserve it somehow. _But there was no need to,_ she realized. _He's home now. We have the rest of our lives to make memories._

The music changed to something upbeat and insincere, and Ed dropped his hands to his sides. "That wasn't too bad, was it?" he asked softly, his eyes looking sad suddenly.

She shook her head, breathless. "No, it was- it was wonderful," she breathed. Pressing up on her toes, she moved to kiss him, but he turned away.

"Just tell me that wasn't yours and Al's song or anything, was it?" he asked, facing the stairs.

The easy silence at once became oppressive, and the radio continued with its silly jingle of a song, incongruous to the change in mood.

She felt as if he had slapped her, and stared at his back in shock. "No, its-" how could she tell him it was the song she cried herself to sleep to when she was younger, wishing he was alive and there for her? "How did you know?" she asked instead.

"Mustang told me the second day I was home, before we went to East City," he said, not turning around, intending to go upstairs without saying anything more, but her voice caught him and he glanced back.

"Ed-" she pleaded, and he thought he saw something like fear in her eyes.

"I'm not mad, Win," he assured her. "Al's been in love with you ever since we were kids. I just don't understand why you didn't tell me."

He waited for some kind of explanation from her, and the song on the radio changed again.

Minutes passed, but she found she had no answer for him. She watched him sigh and turn away again, slowly climbing the stairs to Al's bedroom.


	14. Where the Heart Resides

**Where the Heart Resides **

The Germany of 1925 was vastly different than the war-torn country he had arrived in seven years ago. The economy was finally beginning to recover, thanks to the newly-elected government. And thanks to their newly acquired government sponsorship, he and Al had made more progress in a year than they had in the past three. Edward sighed, remembering the days (and nights) of pouring over physics texts in their hole of an apartment, trying desperately to catch up to Alphonse, who was studying physics at Munich's University. He remembered the two of them, huddled under a blanket together (just like kids, Alphonse had said) because they had no heat, talking of someday when their rocket was built… someday was quickly approaching.

Now, secure in their theories and plans, actual construction was under way. Edward's knowledge of mechanics had previously been purely theoretical, but now there was the practical to confront. They had, optimistically, promised their sponsors that the rocket would be competed and ready for testing in less than one year. Now he and Alphonse worked day and night to get it built, in a lab by the Munich airfields provided by the government.

Alphonse seemed to think that once they launched their rocket (providing the launch was successful, that is) his country would finally gain the respect it deserved. Al was doing it for his country, Ed was doing it to get home.

But after ten years, sometimes it seemed that he had to force himself to remember his home, even if it was just one thing every day. When he woke up in the mornings he always knew where he was. It was very rare, now, that he felt for a split second that he was sleeping in his old home in Rizembool, or in the spare bedroom at Winry's with his brother in the bed next to him. He almost never had those dreams where he was going about a normal day, in Central, reporting to that annoying Colonel, and suddenly thought, _huh, that was a weird dream I had last night, I was in some place called Germany. Good thing it wasn't real. _

Even the voices and faces he loved began to blur in his memory, becoming less defined over time. Winry's eyes were blue, he knew, but exactly what shade of blue were they again? And Al, oh, even if he could still hear his voice clearly in his mind, his voice wouldn't sound like that now. Al would be a grown man, like he was, not the child Edward remembered. It was all too often, Ed thought, that the word "home" now conjured up images of cooking dinner with Alphonse Heiderich in their always-messy kitchen or sitting on the floor with his friend, leaning back to back, each engrossed in a book.

He jumped when he felt the hand on his shoulder. "Ed, hello, you there?" Al was asking, teasing him.

"Huh?"

"C'mon, it's late, lets finish up and get home," Al said with a smile, rubbing this thumb over the dirt smeared across Ed's forehead.

"Yeah, okay, just let me-"

Although they both heard it, neither of them could place the whistling noise before everything went white, then red, and finally black.


	15. Finding the Catch: Unpaid Debts

**Finding the Catch: Unpaid Debts**

They walked, side by side but not hand in hand, through the cool sidewalks of Central's early evening. She had expected him to pay for dinner, so took care of the bill before hand and nearly giggled at the shock that froze his face when he realized what she had done. "If you paid, sir," she insisted, "this would be a date. And it isn't," she added when he tried that charming grin of his on her. She wouldn't fall for something like that now, not after all this time.

"There's no need to call me sir," he said playfully. "Neither of us is on duty and I'm no longer your superior."

What she hadn't expected was how much she would enjoy the evening and how well he would be able to put her at ease. She had only accepted his invitation after the deepest of considerations. When he invited her back to his place after dinner, she found herself unable to decline, even after all this time.

Once inside, sitting in the familiar plush blue chairs, she felt strangely at home. He watched her, amused, as she straightened things she felt had become out of order since she left. She turned his cluttered end tables into pristine surfaces almost effortlessly, efficiently stacking his bills and paperwork and setting them on his desk. She frowned when he stretched his feet out on the coffee table and he almost took them down again before he remembered that this was his house, and his table. Riza looked away when she remembered the same thing. "So," she began, suddenly at a loss for things to say. She stood up. "I really shouldn't have come here," she said, her voice completely changed.

Roy rose as well. "Stay," he said simply. "I'll put some coffee on." With that he walked out of the room, and she could hear him shifting things around in the kitchen. Roy knew how to make coffee? _Of course he knows,_ she chided herself. _He made his own coffee before I was here, and of course he makes it after._

"Isn't this a little out of order, sir?" she asked from the doorway, trying to tease.

When he looked at her blankly, she continued.

"Don't you usually make her coffee the morning after?"

He frowned, acting puzzled. "Make who coffee?"

She smiled bitterly. "Your latest conquest."

Roy groaned, rubbing his hand over his forehead, careful not to disturb the eyepatch. "There haven't been any conquests, Riza, believe me," he said, tired sounding suddenly.

She had meant it to be funny, but her accusation lay flat in the space between them. She didn't know what made her continue. "But General Mustang, don't you have a reputation with the ladies you need to keep up?"

He stated at her. "Old rumors die hard, no matter what we do to combat them. You know that," he said finally, turning back to the coffee.

Out of habit, she reached for the cupboard where she knew he kept the mugs, but blinked in surprise when she saw stacked plates instead. She drew her eyebrows down. Covered in dust, of course, she noted.

"On the left," he said, with, was that amusement in his voice?

Obediently she opened the left cabinet, and pulled out two mugs, handing him one.

When the phone rang, she hoped it was someone from the office who urgently needed to speak to him, so she could excuse herself quickly, without even having to say goodbye. In fact, after he answered, she motioned towards the door, signaling she would leave him to his business, but he shook his head fiercely at her while barking instructions into the phone. "Stay calm," was the last one before he hung up.

She looked at him questioningly.

He was grabbing his coat from the rack and handed Riza her own. "It was Fullmetal," he said shortly, and she raised her eyebrows in surprise. "He said Alphonse is disappearing."

She followed him quickly out the door. "Disappearing? What does that mean?"

"I don't know," he said darkly, "he was nearly hysterical on the phone. He said he doesn't understand it and I need to get over there now."

"How quickly can we get to Altenburg?" she asked then.

"Four hours, if we drive," he said shortly.

They didn't speak at all during the drive.

_They had both said "we."_


	16. Finding the Catch: Far From Home

_**Camudekyu:** Aw, thanks. _

**_Eleventy-Nine:_ **_thank you. And here I thought my conclusions were getting kinda cheesy  But seriously, your comment that my story is original really means a lot to me, although I feel like it is nearly impossible to be original in fanfiction, I mean, that's the point of it. It's based on someone else's work. So thanks ever so much!_

_**Abstractication: **thanks. Sorry, I can't really tell you what's going to happen to Al. But this chapter may shed some light on things for you. Or, it might just make you wonder more. Haha #that was meant to be an evil laugh# Enjoy._

_**Silent:Tears:Fall**: wow. Best post series story? #dies# Sure, I'll gladly update, anything for you!_

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**Finding the Catch: Far From Home**

Before Al even opened his eyes he knew something was wrong. He didn't know what it was, exactly, that he had expected from the transmutation, but it was not this.

He was no longer in the temple; he was in a bed. Opening his eyes, he realized it was a hospital bed, with clean, crisp white sheets. Not an Ishbalan hospital, he mused. Was he in East City, then?

He looked down at himself: his body seemed intact. He flexed his fingers; curled his toes. What had happened then? _Where was his brother?_

A nurse came in and was doing something with one of the machines by his bed. "How long have I been sleeping?" he asked her. His voice felt raw.

She turned to him, surprised. "You were brought in a few hours ago," she said kindly. "After the explosion."

_Transmutation,_ he corrected her, although his mind still felt cloudy.

"I'll let your friend know you're awake," the nurse said brightly, and exited the room.

Soon a pale, thin man appeared by his bedside. "You gave us quite a scare, Alphonse," the man said. "How are you feeling?"

"Okay…" he answered politely. Was this someone he was supposed to know?

"The doctor said you passed out from the smoke," the man told him.

"What happened?" he asked.

The man sat down in the chair beside the bed. "All they could determine was that something caught fire in the lab, causing the explosion… Alphonse?" the man asked, his voice urgent. "Edward wasn't with you in the lab, was he?"

He felt his eyes widen. "Edward?" he repeated, his heart pounding.

The man looked concerned. "We've been unable to locate him since the accident; was he with you?"

"How do you know my brother?" Alphonse asked.

The stranger frowned. "Your brother?" His concern seemed to deepen. "I'm talking about Edward Elric, your, ah, partner. We need to know if he was in the lab with you during the explosion."

His voice came out very faint. "What explosion?"

The man stood up. "Perhaps you need to rest some more," he suggested. "I'll stop by later tonight if we find anything."

Alphonse could hear the conversation outside his room, and every sentence fed his mounting confusion.

_"Memory loss is common in an incident like this. He may never remember the events surrounding the explosion; it isn't something to really concern yourself over. Physically, he's fine, we'd just like to watch him over night as a formality."_

"_Doctor, it's not just the explosion he doesn't remember. I tried to ask him if he knew anything about his partner on the project, and he didn't seem to know who he was. They're very close, I find it hard to believe he could forget him. Is it possible he has amnesia?"_

"_He didn't show any signs of head trauma when he was brought in and his pupils responded normally to the light. It's highly unlikely. Perhaps he was just confused. Does he have any family that you can locate? I don't know if it would be right to send him home alone."_

"_He doesn't have any family at all, that I know of. He lives with his research partner, the one we've been trying to locate. You're sure you don't have any unidentified patients in the hospital that fit his description?"_

"_No, I'm sorry sir, there hasn't been anyone."_

"_I'm afraid he must have been in the lab with Alphonse when it exploded. There was no, ah, body found, but the building was completely destroyed."_

"Excuse me," he asked the nurse when she returned, his voice shaking. "Am I in East City? Or… where am I? What hospital is this?"

She cast her sympathetic gaze on him. "You're in Munich's University Hospital," she answered. Before he could ask her where on earth Munich was, she continued gently, "Mr. Heiderich, you really need to get some rest."

Ah, perhaps that explained things! "I'm sorry, my name isn't Heiderich," he said, still polite. "It's Elric, Alphonse Elric. You must have me confused with another patient. I wasn't in an explosion, I-" he stopped, realizing that it was unlikely the man who seemed to know him was just confusing him with someone else who had a similar name. It also didn't explain why the man knew Ed.

"Get some rest," the nurse repeated, looking slightly panicked. She left the room in what seemed like a hurry, leaving Alphonse to sit in utter confusion.


	17. Finding the Catch: The Webs We Weave

_**Silent:Tears:Fall**: Yeah Al's confused all right. And its going to get worse!_

_**Eleventy-Nine**: Exactly_

_**Abstractication: **I take it you, like I, don't really sleep? ;P_

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**Finding the Catch: The Webs We Weave**

It was just as Edward's hysterical voice told him over the phone: Alphonse was disappearing. He was no longer a completely solid form; there were parts of his body Roy could pass his whole hand through. "Don't do that," Ed instructed him sharply. "What if he can feel that? It can't feel that good."

Roy snatched his hand back. "I've never seen anything like this," he admitted. "What's going on?"

Ed shook his head, frantic. "I don't _know._ It's almost as if- the gate- its still taking from him, little by little. I don't know what to do!"

Roy ran his hand through his hair, flattening the damp strands against his head. It had started pouring half way to Altenburg and the short distance between his car and their front door had been enough to drench both himself and Hawkeye. "Can't you find a way to stop the reaction?"

"But it's not a reaction! Or at least, the reaction has already taken place. This is just… happening on its own. What should I do?"

The man eyed him curiously, the worry evident in his voice when he spoke. "You're supposed to be the genius alchemist, why are you asking me?"

"I might be a genius," Ed said hotly, "but I've been away from alchemy for ten years now. You're an alchemist, you've studied human transmutation and you must have read the latest reports, you must know about things that have been discovered while I was gone!"

Winry frowned. "Not ten years, Ed," she corrected.

Ed raised an eyebrow at her. "What, you missed me so much the time just flew by?" he asked sarcastically.

Roy cleared his throat. "You haven't been gone for ten years, Fullmetal."

Ed drew himself up to his full height, wishing he could be at least at Roy's eye level. "Stop calling me Fullmetal," he retorted. "I'm not military anymore. And I think I know how long I've been gone." He looked from Roy to Winry over to Alphonse in his transparent state.

"How old are you, Ed?" Winry asked suddenly. She watched his eyes travel over her face, studying her features carefully.

"I'm twenty-six," he said finally. "Why, how old are you?"

It was hard to tell how old he was, she thought; because of his size he would always look younger. Besides, she had no reason to expect him to be anything other than the same age she was, just like he had always been. "Twenty-two," she answered slowly. Her face began to flush as she watched him look over at Alphonse again.

When his gaze returned to her, his expression was incredulous. "So if you're twenty-two, that would make Al…" his eyes widened further.

"Sixteen," Roy finished dryly, his lips twisting up in a smirk.

"_Winry!"_ Edward exploded.

Her normally pale skin went from a dark pink to a brilliant red, and she looked down at her lap.

"No _wonder_ people are talking about you!" he exclaimed, shaking his head. "And here I thought they were making a big deal out of nothing…" Suddenly he stopped, closing his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them the frantic look had returned. "Mustang, you need to bring me every piece of research that's been done on human transmutation in the past ten- er, six years. I have no idea what's going on but I'm gonna figure it out. I'm not going to let my brother disappear again!" he said forcefully.

Hawkeye stepped forward, having been silent up until that point, and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Edward, you have every resource we can get our hands on at your disposal." She looked over at Roy. "We would both do anything to help you and Alphonse, now as always."

Edward had collapsed into the chair by Al's bed, his elbow on his knee and his head in his hand. "This is all my fault," he said to the floor. "I thought Al would come back eventually, if we just waited. I had no idea this would happen, I don't even understand what's happening and I can't do anything to help him!" He raised his eyes to the others in the room. "I'll never forgive myself if I lose him again!"

"It's not your fault. Fullmet- Edward," Roy said, sounding surprised, but Ed just glared at him.

"Of course it's my fault," he said miserably. "It was all my fault."


	18. The Weight of a Life

_**Abstractication**: its okay that your reviews are not "intellectual," I promise. I just like to know that people really are reading this story. As for why I don't sleep… I guess that's not true, I do sleep, but not at night. I work in the evening and come home around eleven or midnight or so and go to bed around four or five am. Its an odd schedule I know but hey it works._

_**Silent:Tears:Fall**: yeah I have a few things here and there in the previous chapters that hint at the time inconsistency, either people didn't catch them or they assumed that the two worlds were going at different rates. In the Amestris world, its always clearly stated that Ed's been away for six years, but this is the first time he says ou tloud that he's been gone for ten. In the chapter where Ed visits Al in the hospital he says he hasn't seen his little brother's human form in 15 years. Also, the chapter where Ed and Al H are working on their rocket says the year is 1925._

_And yes, Ed and guilt are like best friends._

_As for Ed being upset with Winry, of course that's just secondary to being upset over what's happening to Al, but he and Winry have a ton of issues between them now. The age difference between Al and Winry is kinda weird I guess, but Ed is also dealing with the fact that he and Winry slept together. He didn't know she and Al were in a relationship at the time, but she certainly did, and slept with him anyway. That's got to be trying on their friendship to say the least. _

_**Animefan127:** just be patient my dear. Neither brother has given up yet._

* * *

**The Weight of a Life**

Four years after Edward's disappearance, Al finally accepted the truth: there was no way to bring his brother back without paying some kind of price. No matter how perfect the array, no matter how calculated the ingredients, it would never be enough to equal a life.

Six years after his brother disappeared, Alphonse was ready to pay whatever price necessary to bring Edward back.

There were many different kinds of alchemy, he learned throughout his travels; some of it was not even called alchemy where it was practiced. Since he worked for the military, he spent a lot of time in Ishbal, reconstructing parts of it, trying to restore the nation to some semblance of its former existence. In Ishbal it was called the Forbidden Art, but it was a kind of alchemy. Al saw arrays in every temple to Ishbala he visited. There were none, however, that entranced him as much as the one he discovered in a remote part of the desert. It was uninhabited, unused, but it must have been part of a monastery of some sort before the war. There was no civilization around it, and the military had decided not to re-develop the area. Al tried to be discreet as he tried to reproduce the array line for line in his notes.

It took him nearly a year to decode every symbol in the array; none of it was in his native language and although he had learned to read Ishbalan the sources themselves were near impossible to locate. It was only by sifting through the most obscure religious texts that he was able to understand exactly what the array was.

Human alchemy. Forbidden by God, Ishbala and science alike.

Human Transmutation was possible. Edward had proved that, although it would never be recorded in any alchemy text. The books would continue to print the falsehood that it was impossible and should not be attempted. That was fine, Al thought. Because the only alchemist ever to succeed had been destroyed in the process.

Al's hope was that the Ishbalan array would anchor him to his own life while he reached inside the gate for his brother. There would be a cost, he was sure, but whatever it was, he was willing to pay it if they could only be together again.

He thought his heart would be racing, hands shaking with nervousness when he arrived at the abandoned temple, but his steps were light and his soul felt like soaring. Whatever happened, he would see his brother again. Even if it was for a few moments before he died, he would see him again.

The archways that formed the entrance to the temple had crumpled, and Alphonse clapped his hands together and pressed them to the stone. With a crack! the arches righted themselves; the building was now whole.

He was amazingly calm, his mind crystal clear when he stepped into the array and willed it to activate. He felt the alchemic energy as a breeze that fled over his skin, lifting his hair and whipping his clothing around. Determined, he concentrated his focus on what he desired.

There was the Gate, and it was terrible.

Alphonse had seen it before but he did not remember it, and suddenly those memories seized him with the fear he did not expect to feel. The ground seemed to have dropped out from under him, the array that was meant to anchor him was gone, void, invalid. There was nothing but himself and the Gate.

His stomach clenched with dread as the doors began to open, and his mind was invaded by more information than he thought even existed, the inner workings of everything, _everything _on earth were explained to him in that one split second, things he could not even comprehend, mushroom clouds and star charts and swirling black holes and portals to other universes. _Stop,_ he forced himself to command. _This is not what I've come for._

Eerie bright eyes stared at him hungrily from the darkness within the doors, and chilling, writing black arms began to reach for him. He began to back up. "Wait," he said weakly. "You can't take anything from me without giving me something in return," he protested, but all he heard was the discordant shrieking of the creatures inhabited the depths of Truth. He had expected some kind of bargaining, some kind of conversation in which he would agree to exchange this for that, or perhaps he would have to fight with something, defeat something to earn the right to retrieve his brother from the Gate.

The icy hands were already scrabbling over his skin as he cried, "Take anything from me, my body, my heart, my soul, anything you want, but just give me my brother back. I'll give anything to see him even one more time!"

The answer reverberated in his mind, the voice utterly inhuman and causing a jarring pain to course through his body.

_But your brother isn't here, Human One. _

**End of Part One**


	19. Sins of the Flesh

**Friends and Lovers Part Two**

Hold on to your seats because this ride is about to get wild! Ed's back in his own world, Al's landed himself in Germany, and Winry has a secret. But before we go there, weren't you wondering where all those rumors about Ed and Roy came from?

Oh, ah, also, language warnings for Ed's foul mouth. He's angsty in this chap. But, I already rated this M, so do I need the warning? Ah well.

_**Abstractication**: LAST EXILE IS ON TV?_

_**Silent:Tears:Fall**: but did Al really sacrifice everything and get nothing? … maybe he sacrificed nothing (because he's still alive) and got everything (because Ed did come back) and he still doesn't get what he wanted. Ouch. Those laws of the universe can be a bitch, they can._

_**Biskit:** Thanks for reading! As it happens, this next chapter is THE roy/ed chapter, so do enjoy! As a side note, Roy/Ed is my favorite pairing to read, and so hence I'm kinda nervous about writing it. _

_**Eleventy Nine**: by five thousand? #dies# thankyousomuch!_

_**ShadowBlue**: thank you, im really glad that you like the way it switches in and out of the present, I think it makes it more interesting that way and it goes along with the whole theme, but I hoped it wouldn't be too confusing._

_**Garen Ruy Maxwell**: thanks! I certainly will continue!_

_**KristalChan**: Update soon? You got it!_

_**Stary Angel1:** Thankye!_

**

* * *

Part Two Begins**

**Sins of the Flesh**

"C'mon, boss, your brother is enjoying himself. Why don't you let yourself have a little fun?" Havoc stood laughing before him, a champagne glass in one hand and the other twined around the slender fingers of an attractive redhead. He handed the glass to Ed, saying, "here ya go, drink up. It'll help you relax."

Edward scowled into the delicate flute, sniffing the bubbling stuff suspiciously.

"S'not gonna hurt you," Havoc teased, letting his date drag him off to the dance floor.

It was the fuhrer's birthday party. Everyone military was invited, and all State Alchemists were expected to attend. "Yes, including you, Fullmetal," the Colonel had insisted haughtily, peering at him over the piles of paperwork on his desk. Ed had stomped his foot, replying angrily that he certainly was not attending any stupid parties and he most definitely was not wearing a suit.

The Colonel could tease and order him all he liked, but it had been Al's tinny pleading of "but brother, I'd like to go to a party. I've never been to something like that before," that finally cracked his resolve. The suit was worn (brother, you look very nice, stop complaining) and the party was attended (isn't this fun brother? Look at everyone all dressed up! Oh, there's Lieutenant Colonel Hughes-) and the Fullmetal Alchemist was hating every minute of it.

He watched people interacting, chatting and flirting, laughing and dancing, and took a sharp sip of champagne. He screwed up his face. Ew. How could these people drink this stuff? The bubbles tickled in his nose as he tipped the glass for another sip. Yes, he mused as he watched the people breeze by. This is an adult's world. And as much as he felt like an adult most days, this evening he felt like his age was being waved above his head like a banner screaming _just a child! Unsophisticated! Uneducated! Unable to interact normally in polite society!_

Colonel Mustang thanked the bartender for the glass of brandy and turned to watch the crowd. Where had he left his date again? Was that her dancing with Havoc? His palm smacked his forehead. Ah, no! His eyes narrowed, and he intended to stroll confidently onto the dance floor and request his date returned to him, but something else caught his attention.

He gave a low whistle.

Fullmetal certainly cleaned up nicely. The suit was a perfect cut, showing off his slender build, and his hair shone softly in the light from the chandelier above. The boy caught him staring and scowled at him from across the room, and Roy smiled wryly to himself and made his way over to his subordinate.

Plucking the champagne flute from the boy's hand, he said, "Aren't you a bit young to be drinking this, Fullmetal? Wouldn't you prefer some nice apple juice instead?"

Ed made a move to snatch his drink back but Roy raised it above his head, letting Fullmetal jump for it and watching in amusement as his temper exploded.

"WHO'S SO SMALL HE NEEDS TO DRINK JUICE OUT OF A SIPPY CUP AND SIT AT THE KIDDIE TABLE AT A BIG FANCY PARTY LIKE THIS ONE?" he demanded, his face swiftly turning a bright red.

Roy chuckled to himself, this was too much fun. "You could ask the bartender for a nice, cold glass of milk," he suggested, his voice thick with false innocence. "It might help to solve your, ah, height deficiency."

"YOU KNOW I REFUSE TO TOUCH THAT FOUL DISGUSTING JUICE THAT'S SECRETED FROM A COW, COLONEL BASTARD," he roared, drawing the attention of several bystanders. He snatched the glass out of the colonel's hand, spilling some of the contents on the polished floor and downing the rest of it. He scrunched his face up in a nasty expression and shuddered. "This stuff is pretty foul too," he admitted, suddenly calm again but no more pleasant. "What do you want, anyway?" he demanded, folding his arms across his chest and wrinkling his nose at the bitter taste in his mouth.

"I want to know why you're standing over here enjoying the company of potted plants instead of mingling with the rest of the guests," Roy said, his black eyes sparkling in the flickering light. "Your brother doesn't seem to be having any trouble."

Ed's expression remained dark. "Yeah, well, he hasn't been mistaken for a small child by everyone he's asked to dance," he retorted.

Roy's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You asked someone to dance, and they turned you down?" he asked, incredulous.

The boy frowned, his arms remaining crossed. "No. But they probably would, if I did."

Fullmetal was fifteen, Roy remembered suddenly. He might look like a child and live like an adult, but he was very much a teenager. How did he _expect _him to act at a gathering like this?

"You dance with me then," Fullmetal said sharply, and Roy looked down at him, his surprise doubled.

Roy grinned, not his usual smirk but a full, wicked looking smile. "Gladly," he said, extending his hand, pulling the boy out onto the dance floor. Fullmetal was a surprisingly good dancer, he noticed, pleased. He realized he had expected that at least the sheer weight of the automail would cause him to be unbalanced, but he seemed to compensate for that perfectly. He shouldn't be surprised, he told himself. Fullmetal was a genius; he was good at everything he attempted.

And was Fullmetal always this _pretty?_ He may not have grown much, but his face had matured from the eleven year old child he was when he first encountered him. The planes were more sculptured, the features more refined, although he still did not have the appearance of an adult. Roy groaned inwardly as he felt Fullmetal's body pressing up against his. Just a dance, he told himself, swinging the boy around the dance floor in time to the music. Where was his date when he needed her? Curse Havoc for trying to lure her away as revenge for stealing his girlfriends! It was her who should be looking longingly into his eyes, not him into the eyes of his ever so tempting and ever so off-limits fifteen year old subordinate!

"Hey, Colonel Bastard," the kid commanded, and Roy looked down, not breaking rhythm with the music.

In an instant Fullmetal had wrapped his arms around his neck, yanking him down to his level and planting his hot, wet lips on his mouth.

All stopped.

Yes, the music was still playing and yes, the people were still dancing and laughing, chatting and flirting and looking curiously out at the scene unfolding on the dance floor, storing this information away for the many post-party discussions that would take place in the weeks after. Yes, I was there when they kissed. Yes, I saw them dancing, both like it was completely natural, but I didn't think much of it until they kissed.

But Roy Mustang stopped dead in his tracks, suddenly looking down on a very startled Edward.

_The kid is more surprised by this than I am,_ he realized with amusement, that famous smirk playing at the corners of his lips.

He felt the boy's muscles tense, and he tried to jerk away, but Roy tightened his grip. He saw those gold eyes darting around, looking for the nearest door most likely, and he forcefully began pulling the boy along in the dance steps they had broken from a moment earlier. "Don't you run off yet, the song's not over," he warned under his breath, his face a perfect mask.

Fullmetal had paled, and a faint sheen of sweat had appeared on his forehead. "People are staring!" his hissed.

Roy's hand rested on the small of his back, guiding him across the floor. "They'll stare even more if you run out of here," he said grimly. "Or worse, they'll think I was trying to seduce you."

A new wave of panic crossed the boy's face, apparently he hadn't yet thought of what his spontaneous action might do both of their reputations. "You do it to every one else," he said, his voice strained.

"I try to make sure they're legal first," came the reply through clenched teeth.

As if on cue, the music ended, and true to his prediction Fullmetal all but ran out the large double doors. Roy took a deep breath, threw his shoulders back, and went after him, trying to ignore the sensation that every eye in the room was boring into his back as he left.

He found him out on the balcony, arms flung out over the railing with his head sagging between them. When he heard the footsteps behind him he picked his head up, turning around to face him. "If you've come out here to laugh at me-" he began, but Roy interrupted.

"I'm not going to laugh at you, Fullmetal," he said sternly, coming to lean against the railing beside him. Edward's hair was backlit from the golden light of the party behind him, giving his head a faint glowing outline, and the silver light from the moon above them made his skin appear pale as marble.

"I'm so stupid," the boy muttered, looking down at the yard several stories down. "I was just- I don't know what I was thinking. Now I've probably gone and caused you all kinds of grief with the way people will talk."

_When have you ever cared about causing me grief before?_ Roy thought incredulously. _In fact, I swear, Edward Elric, you deliberately cause me grief all the time!_ Instead he told him, "Don't worry about it, the talk will die down in a few days. A month from now no one will even remember it." _Liar!_

"I mean," the kid continued, staring out across the lawn, "Every woman you meet practically falls at your feet, you can have anyone you want, I couldn't possibly-"

"Who says I want those women?" Roy said softly, his voice low. "Who says I don't want you?"

His head snapped up, anger flashing in his eyes. He straightened and folded his arms in front of him. "Quit making fun of me, Colonel Bastard," he said fiercely. "I know I made a fool out of myself in there, now just leave me alone! Why do you want to make this even worse for me, asshole?"

Roy's face remained calm, but his inner monologue was screaming at him a mile a minute. _Just do what he says and leave him alone! It's a crush, it's just a crush, for god's sake, he's a teenager, what did you expect? He's embarrassed enough as it is and he sure as hell doesn't want to talk about it with you! _"Ed," he said quietly. "I think you're assuming the wrong things here."

Ed looked at him warily, arms still folded, but waited for him to continue.

"I was surprised that you kissed me, yes," he stated slowly. "But I wasn't angry. In fact," _oh no Roy don't tell him that, don't do it, you do NOT have his best interests in mind here, you're not helping him in any way by telling him, you'll only make things worse _"I rather enjoyed it." _Now you've done it, you have just earned yourself a special spot in hell, that one ring that's reserved for child molesters and people who talk during movies. _

The boy's mouth hung open, and Roy reached over and gently pushed it shut, brushing his thumb over those soft lips and across the smooth cheek. Slowly, as he leaned towards him, those gold eyes grew wider and wider until he whispered, "Ed, close your eyes," and slid his fingers under the boy's chin, tilting his face upwards and touching those lips to his own. He felt a nervous tongue dart across his lips, and smiled inwardly to himself, opening his mouth slightly and moving his other hand to the back of the boy's head, pressing them closer together.

It was Roy who finally broke away, breathless, staring at the figure in front of him, flushed, eyes bright, dragging the back of a gloved hand across his mouth.

And then the boy ran.

It was nearly midnight when the brothers returned to the dorm. They sat on their beds and Ed threw open the lone window, letting the moonlight spill across the floorboards. Al had been talking non-stop about the people he had met at the party while Ed just sat, replaying the kiss in his mind over and over again, as if he was afraid that if he forgot even the tiniest detail the moment would disappear forever. Al's next sentence, however, chilled him to the bone.

"When I get my body back, I want to dance like you danced, brother."

"Ah, you can dance, Al, can't you? Izumi taught us both," he said hesitantly.

Al shook his metal head, the joints in the armor making a faint steel-on-steel sound. "I'm too big, who could I ever dance with? And can you imagine what I would sound like, stomping around like that?" A sound came from within the armor that Ed had learned to recognize as a sigh. "Besides, what would be the point? With this body, its not like I can ever kiss anyone."

So Al had seen him after all. He had not mentioned one word about it until that moment. Seen him, or heard someone talking about it.

Ed felt like his heart was cracking in half. _It was all I could do, Al, believe me. It was either use that suit of armor or loose you completely. _He shuddered as another voice took over. _Brother, you should have listened to me when I said trying to bring mom back was a bad idea._ Al had never said that to him, he would never say something like that, but god knows what he was thinking right now. That had to have been what he was thinking.

"I'll get your body back, Al," he swore, the guilt pressing in on him. "I won't stop until I do." This was the part where Al would say, _and I'll get your body back too, brother, so you don't have to deal with that automail,_ but he was silent. As he should be, Edward thought grimly. He could live a normal life, do normal things, have a romance, even, if not a normal one. Missing a few limbs didn't stop him from getting everything he should out of life. It wasn't fair, and he knew it wasn't fair, that while the transmutation had been his idea, it was Al who had paid the highest price.

Colonel Mustang was sitting in his living room, uniform only half off, sipping his finest brandy and listening to his favorite record when his phone rang. He reached over for the receiver lazily, not even surprised when he heard Fullmetal's voice. What he had to say, however, was not what he expected.

"Colonel," he had pleaded, his voice sounding almost desperate, "nothing happened tonight, okay? Please, just forget that any of that happened."

"Fullmet-"

"Its not that I didn't enjoy it, I did, I swear, and I thought its what I wanted, but now I just need you to pretend it never happened."

"Fullmetal," Roy said, trying to collect his racing thoughts, "I owe you an apology. I don't want you to feel like I was taking advantage of you-"

"I don't. Don't apologize. You weren't doing anything wrong, and neither was I, because nothing happened, all right?"

The clock said three am, Roy noticed pointlessly. The voice on the phone seemed in desperate need of comfort, or advice, or both. _That's what you're supposed to be for him, Roy, his friend, his mentor, his superior. He trusted you, and what have you done with that trust? _"Look, these things you're feeling are perfectly normal for someone your age-"

"FUCK YOU COLONEL BASTARD!" Roy had to hold the receiver away from his ear a bit. "I'm not a damn kid! I just- " there was silence for a moment, and then the voice dropped back to a normal level. "I thought it was what I wanted, but it's not, so lets just pretend it was nothing. Can we please?" The voice was strained, hurt, and Roy squeezed his eyes shut against it.

"If that's what you want," he said softly. "But if you ever want to talk-"

"I don't want to talk," Fullmetal said darkly. "I have to go to bed, me and Al are leaving in the morning. Early. We're going to Lior."

"I thought you were leaving next week?"

"Now we're leaving tomorrow." The dial tone signaled that Ed had hung up on him, and Roy slowly brought the brandy glass to his lips, letting the liquor wash over his tongue and sear its way down his throat.

"Nothing happened," he whispered to the empty room.


	20. Finding the Catch: To Outside Eyes

_**Biskit:** remember, rumors often lie. Riza may have been a bit jealous at times, but that's not necessarily why they're not together anymore…_

_**Guy Ruy Maxwell**: when I was fifteen I cant imagine either myself or any of my friends knowing how to act at something like that. In fact, im not sure id be comfortable at a big shindig like that even now_

_**Eleveny-Nine**: ah, good, you're plagued by dirty thoughts. So you can sympathize with me, er, I mean, with Roy, that is. Cough. Not me. But yeah, Roy and Ed is my favorite pairing to read (ok cept maybe Ed and Al H, but that's sort of my new fascination. Me and Roy/Ed go way back) but as much as I enjoy it I just cant see it actually happening DURING the series. After, maybe. Some unfulfilled sexual tensions? Yep, probably. _

_**Abstractication:** too bad I don't get cable, sigh. And don't apologize for complimenting me, tell me you like my story as much as you want!_

_**Silent:Tears:Fall:** yep, that's where all the stories came from. Unrealistic, yeah, maybe it is, but like you said, its so much fun!_

_**KristalChan:** Thanks!_

* * *

**Finding the Catch: To Outside Eyes**

Alphonse stared at himself in the mirror. Mr. Silleman, the man who had visited him the day before, had found it for him when he insisted he was sixteen years old, and Alphonse's hands shook as he held it, causing his reflection to quiver. It was his face, and it was, as the man said, proof enough that he was not sixteen, but besides that, something was horribly wrong.

After his release from the hospital, he followed Mr. Silleman to what he was told had been his and Ed's lab near the Munich airfields. He stood, stunned, unmoving when one of the machines that had been rolling along the ground in the distance lifted into the air. "This is what we were building?" he asked, gesturing towards the contraption that was climbing higher and higher into the sky.

The man shook his head. "You're beyond that. You two told me you were going to blast off all the way to the moon. Pair of regular sky kids, you are." He motioned for Al to follow. "I had hoped seeing the lab would jog your memory, but I guess the building was too destroyed to look familiar to you anyway." He opened his car door. "I'm going to take you home, Alphonse, but if you need anything, you can always call me."

Al climbed inside, and stared at the ruined building growing smaller and smaller as they drove away. "Edward was in there?" he asked, after several minutes had passed. His voice sounded loud in his ears, and the man driving looked pained.

"They haven't found a body," he said with difficulty. "He may- turn up, you know." The rest of the drive passed in silence, and soon Alphonse found himself staring at what he was told was his front door, and fishing in his pocket for the key.

Pushing the door open, he stepped inside, searching for anything that might help him remember. It was a small room, scattered with the clutter of papers and books, _Edward might make a mess like this, if he was intensely researching something, _he thought to himself, bending down to gather some of the papers off the floor.

"Well?" the man asked from the doorway.

Alphonse shook his head miserably. "I don't remember any of this," he admitted.

"But you remember Edward?" he pressed.

"Oh yes," Alphonse assured him. "I remember him perfectly."

The man raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure?"

Al nodded emphatically. "Blond hair, gold eyes… _short,_ although I wouldn't say it to his face. Of course I remember Edward. I've known him my entire life." He looked around. "So we live here, huh?"

The stranger looked at him, concern clear on his face, but simply answered, "That's right." After watching Alphonse look dazedly around the room for several minutes more, he added, "If we find anything, anything at all about Edward, I'll contact you right away."

"Thank you," Al said, not really hearing when the man said good bye and let himself out.

Amnesia. That had to explain everything.

Al let himself collapse onto the couch, scattering the papers he had just picked up over the floor again. He reached down and retrieved one, staring at the scrawling notes and equations. _Edward's writing, _he realized, feeling oddly comforted. Finally, here was something familiar. But, he wondered, peering closer at the paper, what exactly was this? It didn't look like any kind of alchemy he knew…

Thinking hard, he could recall quite clearly telling Winry he was going to be gone for a few days for some military business, and he remembered the soaring, elated feeling he felt on the train as he grew closer and closer to that temple in Ishbal. He had walked the final part of the journey through the desert and then… the transmutation. What had happened?

It must have worked, although try as he might, he could remember nothing. But if he and Edward were living here, together, in this apartment, then he must have brought him back.

Many years must have passed. He didn't know exactly how many; Mr. Silleman hadn't been able to tell him how old he was, only that he was most definitely not sixteen and was most likely in his mid twenties, like Edward. He and his brother had moved, for some reason, to this foreign city called Munich that was so far away he was certain he had never heard of it. It was a city where machines flew around in the air, and they were _trying to send a rocket into space?_

Al shook his head. It all seemed so impossible. Besides that, why would anyone _want _to build a machine that would go up into space? Perhaps, he decided, after much thought, someone like Winry might come up with a crazy idea like that. But no one had mentioned Winry to him. She must not be with them, or she would have come when she heard he was in the hospital.

He hoped Edward would come back soon, from wherever he disappeared to, and explain everything to him.

He stood up, finding the bathroom in the small apartment easily enough, and stared at himself in the mirror again. There was just one thing that didn't make sense to him. He could have succeeded in the transmutation and brought his brother back. They could have moved to this far off city to build rockets, and Al could have changed his name to Heiderich; maybe they were trying to hide their identities or something. (But why, then, didn't Edward change his name too?) He could have lost his memory in an explosion, like Mr. Silleman said. (Although it didn't sit right with him that the last thing he remembered was starting the transmutation in Ishbal.)

Perhaps all these things could be explained, he thought, his fingers becoming white as he gripped the edge of the sink even tighter, _but what could cause his eyes to change from grey to blue?_


	21. Missing Strength

_**Eleventy-Nine:** you've only seen what's on adult swim? Tsk. You should not be spoiling yourself like this! Ah well, its too late now I suppose. And hey, since you cant watch the show at 1 am and get up for school at (dunno, when does school start) 6 am, I'd be happy to keep up my post series universe just for you! (ah, also for my own personal satisfaction) but since you're already spoiled, I guess I can venture a clarification: in one of the last eps of the series Edward's soul ends up in the body of his look alike in London. The look alike dies and Ed's soul goes back to his body in Amestris. At the very end, his whole self, body and soul, ends up in Europe again. In the movie, Ed meets up with Al's double, Alphonse Heiderich. In my story universe, Al's double is the younger brother of Ed's double, Edward Heiderich, who died. In the movie, I don't think alter-ed and alter-al were actually related, but I didn't know that when I wrote this fic and I liked the idea. Hope that made sense. Oh yes, and you can babble all you want, but be warned, I have a tendency to babble back._

_  
**Abby-WCD:** Thanks! I read the movie summary and I was unimpressed. (so you should be less tempted) however, I haven't actually seen it, so I hope its better than it sounds. _

_**Shingo-sama, Silent:Tears:Fall and KristalChan**: Yes, Al is very confused, but he's a smart and level headed guy. Yeah, he is on the wrong track with his guesses, but he feels better coming up with SOME explanation, because to him the only other option is to completely freak out._

_**Animefan127:** Yay, I'm a 12! (Thank you)_

* * *

**Missing Strength**

East City was not so different from Central, really, she told herself. She had stayed late taking care of things at the office, so by the time she was driving home, it was already dark.

_Damn. _Someone had parked in her space.

Irritated, she drove around the block and parked a short walk away.

Her keys jingled in her hand as she strode briskly up the sidewalk to her font door. The only difference was that this city was not laden with memories like Central was. After pulling her door shut and locking it, she surveyed her apartment for anything that had been left out of order. There was nothing.

It was better, living here. Riza Hawkeye did not think she had a very strong imagination, although she knew she had a fantastic memory. In Central, the memories of Roy sitting in her favorite armchair, kissing her good night on her front steps, walking with her hand in hand through the cool evening streets followed her everywhere. Even in her own bed, she could not escape the imprint of his sleeping face on her pillow. She would never admit it, even to herself, that in this new place she had tried, in her loneliness, to imagine him standing behind her, his soft breath on her neck, or even waiting for her in the next room, but it was to no avail. Her imagination left her cold, and she preferred it that way.

Opening her refrigerator, she surveyed the contents and withdrew a block of cheese, intending to make herself a cheese sandwich for dinner. There was no sense cooking, she reasoned, if it was just for herself.

It was not so very different eating alone in this new, clean, perfectly sufficient space. Perhaps it was even better.

Of course it was better.


	22. Finding the Catch: Equivalent Trade

_**Everyone:** firstly, thanks for reviews! Yay! To those who asked for an update, here it is! To those who are starting school soon, good luck! But first (giggles) I would just like to clarify one thing. I didn't realize (hehe) that when I said, "yay, I'm a 12!" that it looked suspiciously like "yay I'm 12!" hahahahahahah that is like the best laugh I have had all week. I am quite far from twelve, lol. When I was twelve, there was no anime on tv. You couldn't download fansubs on the internet, you had to order fansubs on VHS tapes in the mail and im pretty sure when I was twelve I didn't even know what anime even was. Of course, my innocent little self prolly wouldn't have understood what "yaoi" and "slashfic" were either. …but I could pretend im twelve, and let everyone think im some kind of writing prodigy, hehe…_

* * *

**Finding the Catch: Equivalent Trade**

It had been nearly four months since Ed had returned.

It had taken Winry nearly four months to realize, or rather, to admit what was happening. When she forced herself to consider it, there really was no other explanation. She told herself not to panic, not to worry, that maybe it was just stress and worry. Watching someone slowly disappear can make anyone stressed and worried. They were all stressed and worried.

Stress and worry and her clothes were feeling tight on her slender frame, although she had been so distracted she couldn't even recall eating, let alone what she might have been eating. Her heart had fluttered in her stomach while she had called her doctor and made an appointment. Logic told her that no matter what was going on in her life, no matter how stretched and thin she felt, stress does not make you sick to your stomach in the mornings.

She jumped when she heard the knock at the door. Shaking her head, she mentally scolded herself for being so easily startled. She should be used to visitors at odd hours by now. And, she amended, it was the middle of the afternoon. Not an odd hour at all.

"Hello, General Mustang," she said, knowing her voice sounded distant when she greeted him. She moved aside so that he could come in.

"Anything new…" he inquired hopefully, but she shook her head forlornly. His single eye was shadowed by a grey-blue half circle, she noticed, making his appearance similar to Ed's in that way. Neither of them, she was sure, had been sleeping nearly enough. She hadn't been sleeping well either, she admitted. "How is he doing?"

Winry sighed, worry heavy on her features, she was sure. "He's blaming himself, of course. He hasn't said a word to me all week. He's hardly even left his room. He just lays there, in the same spot where Al- was- the spot where he disappeared." She took a deep breath. It was becoming easier to say each time. Alphonse disappeared. People leave, people go away, people even die. Al disappeared.

"And how are you holding up?" he asked her kindly.

"I try to tell him he needs to get up, go out, move forward-" here her voice cracked "-but its so hard when I can barely force myself to do those things." She squeezed her eyes shut, forbidding herself from crying in front of this man. "I'm sorry, I have to go somewhere," she said, her voice shaking. "Ed is upstairs. I'm sure he appreciates your visits, even if he doesn't say so."

He stood, pausing at the bottom of the stairs to watch the young woman as she left her house, shakily pulling the door closed behind her. It must be terrible, he thought vaguely, staring at the door, hand on the stair rail. It must be like losing an Elric all over again.

But it was losing an Elric all over again, he told himself. No matter how determined, no matter how brilliant, the boys had committed an unforgivable sin and the price had to be paid. It didn't matter which brother paid it, or how he paid it, but perhaps it was true that the Elrics could never regain everything they had lost.

Roy shook his head to clear it, forcing himself to climb those stairs and enter that room and speak to that man who had once been so full of life and energy and determination. The door wasn't closed, but Roy felt awkward entering and awkward knocking, so he merely stood in the doorway, letting his eye drift over the scene before him: the rumpled, unmade bed, clothes strewn about the floor, the pictures on the dresser all turned face down. Edward sat on the deep window ledge, his hair down around his shoulders, his shirt half undone, and his left leg dangling loosely above the floor. His head rested against the glass, and his face was empty.

Roy hated these visits, because it _was_ like losing an Elric all over again. He had been there with Ed and Winry, watching the shining point in his life disappear, the bright determined boy who could do anything, take on anything, fade away before his eyes, and now the same thing was happening to the elder brother as well.

Edward appeared solid enough. If Roy had grabbed his arm and jerked him to his feet, the floor would have felt his weight, but he was not going to go that route today. If he bombarded the man with sarcastic taunts, he surely would have felt his fist colliding with his jaw, but that was not his plan this time either. He did not need to prove to himself that Edward was present in body; that was obvious enough. It was his soul that seemed unreachable.

"Are you going to come in?" The voice was toneless and the body did not move, the expression did not change. Ed remained leaning his head against the window, curled in on himself on the ledge.

Roy strode quickly into the room, looking about for a place to sit, and settled on the edge of the bed, sidestepping the clutter scattered over the floor. "How are you doing?" he asked quietly, keeping his voice neutral.

A bitter laugh issued from the still form, and he was rewarded with the turning of the head and a hollow gaze from dull eyes. "I'm still here," he answered roughly.

"Would you like to go for a walk?" he suggested carefully.

"No." There was no defiance in the objection, it was simply a word like any other.

"It's a nice day outside-" he began.

"I can see that," Ed interrupted, gesturing towards the window.

Edward did not want to go outside, and Roy did not want to stay in this miserable house a minute longer than he had to, but he felt some sense of responsibility somehow. Taking care of the Elrics seemed to be his lot in life, he supposed. His eyes fell on a book that lay jumbled with the bed sheets, and he picked it up, turning it over in his hands. It wasn't an alchemy book, he noted, surprised. It was a novel.

"It's Al's," Ed supplied. His hand swept the expanse of the room, and he said, "This is Al's room, everything in here is his." He plucked at the half buttoned pale green shirt he wore. "These are his clothes."

"It doesn't suit you," Roy said softly, setting the book back on the bed.

"You mean it's too big for me," he corrected, his expression unchanging.

It was almost eerie. The lack of arm flailing temper tantrum both unnerved and alarmed the older man.

Ed turned back to the window. "It's not going to work, you know," he said. "It doesn't upset me that my little brother is bigger than me. He never had automail to stunt his growth, there's no reason he shouldn't be a normal height. I _want_ him to be taller than me. I want him to be everything I wasn't."

It was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. "That's not what I meant," Roy all but whispered. "Green doesn't look good on you." It was that or the sharpness of his cheekbones that came from not eating, or the circles under his eyes that came from not sleeping.

The only response was a shrug, and after a few minutes Roy picked up the book again, leafing through it without understanding anything he looked at. At the sound of movement he looked up to see that Edward had turned on the window ledge, now sitting with his back to the glass and facing him. His eyes wandered over the room, and he seemed to be seeing Roy for the first time. "So what'd you bring today?" he asked.

He raised his eyebrow. "Pardon?"

"Last time you visited you brought classical records."

"You hated them," he said dismissively, looking back down at the open book.

"They weren't that bad," Ed conceded.

Roy frowned. "Well I didn't bring anything today. Just myself, although you don't seem to think I'm very good company."

"What happened to your eye?" The question came without preamble, with no forewarning, an abrupt halt to the strained exchange of sentiments.

Roy closed the book, setting it carefully back on the covers, and looked at the younger man. "I was wondering when you were going to ask me that," he said, his expression unreadable.

Dark gold eyebrows drew together above light gold eyes. "Sorry." The word was whispered. "Sorry," he said, louder. "You don't have to answer that. I didn't mean to ask you that way."

Roy considered him for a moment. "It's fine," he said honestly.

Ed was shaking his head. "No, no, it's not fine. I hate when strangers ask me what happened to my limbs. It's none of their business," he said, with more force than Roy had heard from him all day.

He ran his hand through his short fall of black hair in a gesture that Ed knew well. "Well, you're not a stranger," he said with equal force, and repeated, "It's fine." He fingered the eye patch lightly. "I was shot in the head," he told him, fixing his eye on the younger man's startled expression.

Ed had been swinging his right foot against the wall, making a slow rhythmic knocking sound. This stopped. "Then why aren't you _dead?"_ he demanded, incredulous.

Roy simply shrugged. "I guess you could say I was lucky, if you can call it that. Most of the bone fragments lodged in my eye socket rather than in my brain."

The younger man was still gaping. "Was it during the last war?" he asked finally.

"No, it was the night I killed the fuhrer." The sentence hung in the air between them. The same night Ed had sacrificed himself for his brother. This was the first time either of them had spoken of it.

"And then you married Hawkeye," Ed stated, pushing aside any possible discussion of the events of that fateful evening.

"You could put it that way," Roy said, relieved. "She took care of me while I recovered, and then-"

He wasn't sure, but he thought he heard Ed _snicker_ as he turned away. He hopped off the window ledge and walked over to the dresser, picking up one of the overturned frames and shoved it at him. "Where's this from?"

He glanced at it. "We sent that to Al from our honeymoon in Xing," he said, his voice a touch wistful.

"Did you really cheat on her?"

"No." The response was flat, and Roy did not look at him as he held the frame out for Ed to take back.

Ed flopped down on the bed next to him, leaning back on his hands. "Shit, Roy, I'm really sorry. I'm awful company, aren't I?" he said with disgust, kicking his foot against the bed frame. "You come here to cheer me up, and all I can talk about is you getting shot and you getting divorced." He stood up. "I guess we can go for a walk. I'll try not to be too miserable for you."

Roy did not know how to tell him that even talking about his divorce was preferable to listening to the loathing Ed subjected himself to over losing his brother again.


	23. Walking Forward

_**Everyone:** as always, thanks for the reviews! Two chapters in one today, do enjoy! Abstractication, don't feel stupid, I thought it was funny, and you are not the only one to misread that, lol. Camudekyu, yes, things are definitely about to change indeed._

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**Walking Forward**

(I)

"Come Josephine in my flying machine going up, she goes, up, she goes-"

"Ed, _shut up!"_ Alphonse bellowed from outside the bathroom door.

The door flew open and Ed stood there grinning and dripping, a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair hanging plastered to his back. "Oh, gee, you're a fly kid, but not me, I'm a sky kid!" he continued, watching with amusement as Al cringed.

"Okay, look, that is a _dumb_ song, I can't believe you listen to that old stuff. And besides," he said, laughing as Ed pushed past him, shaking his hair out as we went and spraying Al with water, "you can't carry a tune to save your life!" he called after him.

Ed just shrugged, taking care to thoroughly dry his metal arm. "I love you too, Alphonse," he said with a sweet smile.

"Think you took long enough in the shower?" he said with mock irritation, pulling the door closed. "I'm the one who has to get to class this morning!"

"Sorry!" came Ed's voice through the door.

He knew he wasn't really going to be late to class, and he took a few extra minutes to stand under the fall of warm water. He was happy, he realized with a start, and grinned up at the falling droplets, squeezing his eyes shut.

He could remember the very day that he met Ed. It was a freezing cold afternoon, the day after a huge snowstorm in the dead of winter. He had decided to go to the Munich University Library for the day, yes, for the books, there was a novel he had been waiting to read but never seemed to be on the shelves, but mostly because the library had heat and his tiny apartment did not. He didn't remember if Ed had been in the library already when he arrived, or if he came in when Al was hunting for his novel, but he recalled clearly how those strange eyes bored into him from across the room.

Unable to find the novel he wanted, he had settled on the floor with one he had already read, leaning his back against the shelves. It was several hours later when he began to feel his muscles cramping, and set the book down for a moment to stretch out. He noticed that there was a free space at the table where the boy who had stared at him was sitting (had he really been staring at him? He seemed engrossed in what he was reading; perhaps Alphonse had imagined it?)

When Al sat down the boy had looked up, surprise clear on his face, but went immediately back to what he had been doing. Al opened his book and tried to read, but he could feel those odd eyes on him, staring. He looked up, but the boy looked away.

At first glance he looked unremarkable (except those eyes, which Al would not have noticed if he hadn't been staring at him). He was young, probably younger than Alphonse and definitely too young to be a student at the University, he decided. He was thin and had blond hair pulled in a ponytail behind his head. That was all Al noticed.

This went on for some time, each boy staring and looking away, alternating. When Al skimmed the titles of the books the boy had piled next to him, his eyes widened. This stranger had the novel he wanted! At the moment he realized this, the blond boy looked up to see him staring at his books. "Al?" he said, very quietly.

He jumped.

"Sorry," the boy muttered, looking down again. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"How did you know my name?" Al asked, and several people turned to look at them. He lowered his voice. "Do I know you?" he whispered. A very disconcerting feeling was beginning to creep over him. Did he know him? This person looked familiar to him suddenly, and his heart told his mind to stop, don't think like that, it can't be him. He felt his jaw drop. "Ed?" he managed.

No. It was not possible, it was ridiculous, what was he thinking? This person could not be his brother, his brother was dead, years since dead and even if he wasn't, even if he had survived (don't do this to yourself, his heart pleaded, you know he's gone) he couldn't be this person, there was a resemblance but they weren't the same.

Not-Ed was studying him, seeming to measure him with those penetrating eyes, questioning him, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to speak.

"That book," he whispered finally. "I've been looking for it for months."

The stranger picked it up, turning it over, and gave a soft laugh. "This one?" He seemed about to say something, but pressed his lips together instead, changing his mind. "Take it," he said instead, offering Al the novel. "I'll read it some other time."

Al's heart was pounding, but why? Why should this boy who was not his brother make him feel this way? "No, I- I'd just like to read it, ah," he stopped, trying to organize his sentence. He was so thrown off, mentally, and couldn't believe a conversation with a stranger about a novel could unsettle him this much. "I can't take it out, I mean, I'm not a student here, but I'm a fast reader, I could just read it and give it back to you when you're ready to leave-"

The stranger nodded once, and motioned for Al to take the book. Al picked it up, setting his other one aside, opened it, and forced himself to concentrate on the words in front of him.

Before long (but it was long, he was nearly halfway through the book) he felt the stranger's hand on his shoulder. He was standing at his side. "I'm leaving now," he said, although he did not move to take the book.

"Ah, here," Al said, holding it out for him, but the boy shook his head.

"I'll check it out for you if you want. Then you can take it home and finish it. Just make sure you return it, okay?"

"No, I couldn't," Al protested, but the boy held up his hand.

"Please," he insisted. "It's no problem for me."

Al looked at his open expression, taking in each feature. The fluttering, unsettled feeling in his gut began to subside. There was a resemblance, but that was all. This boy was not his brother. He tipped his head. "Are you a student?" Al asked, curious.

The boy shook his head. "My father works here," he explained, scooping up his books and heading to the checkout desk. He limped a little, Al noticed, following closely behind him. Once each book had been stamped he handed Al the novel. "Here."

Alphonse looked down at the book he had been handed, then back up at the blond stranger. "Thanks," he said softly.

The stranger smiled warmly. "What's your name?" he asked, pulling his coat closed against the winter chill and pushing open the heavy doors of the building. The wind immediately assaulted them and they stood at the top of the outside steps, Munich's University neighborhood spread out before them.

Al shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them from freezing, and followed the boy out of the doorway. "Its Al. Alphonse Heiderich." He removed his hand from his pocket and held it out to shake.

He watched the boy consider his hand for a moment, then shifted his pile of books to one arm and seemingly reluctantly extended his own hand, his expression apologetic. As soon as Al took it in his own he could tell it wasn't flesh. He watched the boy's features cloud over with worry. "Um, sorry, it's-"

"It's okay," Al said quickly, grasping the metal hand gently and shaking.

The stranger relaxed, relieved. "I'm Edward Elric," he introduced himself. "It's nice to meet you."

Alphonse was not sure he would ever see they boy again, after all, Munich was a fairly large city and the University was not a place where he ordinarily spent much of his time, but he did. It was almost as if- but no, he was imagining things. This Edward could not have possibly been following him. They just happened to run into each other often. Perhaps they were just instinctually drawn to the same places at the same time. Edward had just moved to Munich, he learned, when his father accepted a teaching position at the University. He was several years older than Alphonse had initially guessed, which made for an embarrassing conversation and what Al feared was nearly the end of their new found friendship.

Ed turned twenty at the end of the month, and Al took him out to celebrate when he learned that Ed had not made any plans. _No one here knows its my birthday, why should they?_ he had said somewhat cryptically. _I'm sure your father knows,_ Al had protested, but Ed just scowled. _I very much doubt that, _he had snapped.

Except for that first day they met, Ed never reminded him of his brother. Whenever possible, Al tried not to think of his brother; the hurt was simply too much for him. He and his brother had been inseparable when they were children, and when his brother left to study physics in London Al had been devastated. When his brother had disappeared he believed for the longest time he couldn't possibly be gone, but eventually, after the Great War ended, word had come of his death. Alphonse had never even gotten to say goodbye, and now he was alone.

Alone but for this strange friendship he was forming with this strange boy. He had seen Ed interact in social situations; he was polite enough but neither friendly or outgoing. His friendship seemed reserved solely for Alphonse. And it was his friendship, Al now realized, that had pushed him to where he was now, twenty years old himself and starting his second year at the University. Walking forward, just as Ed had demanded.

(II)

It was the day he had climbed over the barrier and sat in the patch of overgrowth on the bank of the river Isar. When he was little and lived with his mother she used to take him and his brother for picnics by the river that ran through their small town, and he longed to be a little boy again who could take all his troubles to mother and have her kiss them away for him. The dampness of the ground slowly soaked through his clothes, but he hardly noticed; he was miserable and alone. He felt a tear slide down his face, and he made no move to brush it away. It was no use trying not to cry, he had learned; it was best to just let the tears come as they would.

"Al!" called the familiar voice, and he huddled down into himself amidst the tall grasses. He only wanted to be alone right now, couldn't Ed see that? What was he doing all the way out on this side of the city anyway? This was his spot, not Ed's, not anyone else's. He looked up, seeing his friend leaning over the wall of the bridge and peering down at him. "Leave me alone," he said, hiccupping. He blinked, and another tear splashed down on his shirt.

"I've been looking for you," Ed told him from above. "Come back up here," he pleaded.

Al shook his head. "I said I want to be alone," he said to the ground, not raising his eyes. He had no desire to share his misery with someone who wouldn't understand.

Ed surveyed the concrete barriers and slanted concrete bridge supports critically. Since Al would not come up to him, he would climb down to the bank to Alphonse. He climbed up onto the wall using his good leg and swung the prosthetic one over the edge, gripping the bricks firmly as he carefully regained his footing on the other side.

Al looked up, a dull stab of worry piercing through his misery, and called out, "Hey, be careful!" He stood up reluctantly and hurried over to the slanted supports under the bridge Ed was slowly and carefully attempting to scale. "There are safer ways to get down here you know," he said, accusation thick on his voice. He climbed up the bottom part of the concrete and offered a hand to Ed, which he immediately took.

"Thanks," his friend muttered, eyes not moving from his footing until he was securely on the ground.

Alphonse stood in the tall grasses, hands on his hips, glaring at the boy. "Ed, that was really dumb," he said crossly.

Ed just shrugged. "What are you doing down here, anyway?" he asked, concerned.

Al just glared. "I wanted to go somewhere where I could be alone," he said pointedly.

Ed turned to face the dirty, rushing water of the river. "My little brother," he said softly, "always went and sat by the river when he was upset." He gave a small, half-smile. "Of course," he added, "we lived out in the country, so it wasn't such an escapade to get there."

Al crossed his arms. "I told you there was a safer way to get down here," he said flatly. "What do you want that was so important, anyway?"

His friend looked like he was about to say something, opened his mouth, closed it, sighed, and then spoke, still looking out at the river. "I just… wanted to see you, that's all. Today is… well, I was just thinking about a lot of things, and… ah, missing… some people… I wanted to see you," he repeated, turning those gold eyes to face him finally.

Al flopped down in the soggy grass, drawing his knees up to his chest again, and Ed awkwardly followed him, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back on his hands. "Well, here I am. You can see me crying and miserable, which is why I wanted to be alone. Happy?"

Ed, who he knew hated to be touched and rarely made a move to touch him, began rubbing his back softly. He was surprised, but it felt soothing and he leaned into it. "If you want to talk about it," Ed said gently, "it might make you feel better."

He sighed. His tears had all but dried up now, but he wiped his eyes anyway. "I miss my mom," he said finally. "I know it sounds stupid-"

"It's not stupid," Ed interrupted, almost harshly, continuing to rub his back. When Al didn't say anything, Ed said softly, "It's never stupid to miss someone you love"

Al dropped his head onto his knees, feeling the tears pricking at his eyes again. "It _is _stupid," he insisted to the ground, his voice low. "She was so proud of me, her youngest son, the only son she has left, going off to the big city to make something of himself. Just like when my brother went to London."

"Your brother?" Ed echoed.

He sniffled. "Yeah. He died there," he said sadly. "It was during the war, it seemed like everyone was dying. I miss him too. I believed for so long that he was just missing, that he was alive somewhere, we just didn't know how to find him, its hard to remember sometimes that he's never coming back."

He didn't notice his friend's shocked expression.

Al continued to stare at the ground when he said, "He looked a little like you, you know." He was silent for a moment, and then sighed. "I don't want to talk about my brother. There's nothing anyone can do to change the fact that he's dead. I just wanted to move on with my life, to do something, to live for both of us I guess. But what have I made of myself here?" he demanded of himself. "I can barely pay my rent, I never have enough money for food, I cant count how many times the lunch _you've_ bought me has been my only meal-" Ed opened his mouth to respond to that, but Al held up his hand to stop him. "I want to be a scientist, I told my mom. And what am I really? I'm just a-"

"Al," his friend interrupted forcefully. "You _are_ a scientist. You study science, that's what a scientist is," he said firmly.

Al shook his head. "But I _don't,_" he said miserably. "I want to invent something. Ever since I was little I wanted to invent something incredible, that everyone in the world would remember me for. But that's just a dream. All I do is dream, I don't actually study anything, I don't even know where to start!" He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and looked up. "No one will apprentice me, and no one would dream of funding my research because I cant even tell them what it is I want to study!"

"Why don't go to the University?" Ed asked quietly. "You can study lots of things there, and then pick what it is you want to continue with. That's how it works, isn't it?"

He sighed, exasperated. "I don't have any money! How can I possibly go to school?"

"You can work something out," Ed protested.

He shook his head. "I should just go back home," he whispered. "I should go back home and work in my father's store, and carry on the family tradition and all that." He wiped his eyes again. "I'll just have to tell my mother that her son was nothing but a failure in the big city." He dropped his head again, and was silent.

Edward rested a comforting hand on his knee, and waited for him to raise his eyes. "You're not a failure," he told him, his voice sincere. "Sometimes life just knocks you down. That doesn't mean its time to give up just yet. Sometimes you've just got to stand up again, and keep moving forward." He gave his knee a gentle squeeze. "You have your own two legs," he said, and Al looked guiltily down at Edward's feet, one of which he knew was just a prosthetic, "use them to stand up and keep walking forward." His eyes took on a faraway cast, and Al looked at him curiously for a moment. "Don't lose sight of what you want, Al, even if you can't see it clearly yet," he said finally, drawing a comforting arm around his friend and holding him close to his side.

Shortly afterwards he had learned he had been accepted at the University, and at Edward's insistence, he enrolled. Edward was a self-proclaimed chemist, although Alphonse had no idea where or how he had amassed such extensive knowledge, but his brother had studied physics, and that was what he chose as his major. In the course of his studies he became enthralled with the concepts of mechanics and rockets, and his life began to take on a shape once more. He would be the first man to send a rocket into space, and all the world would marvel at the scientific advances that came out of what was now a broken Germany.

It was so much easier to walk forward when he wasn't alone.

His fingers were beginning to shrivel in the water, he realized belatedly, reaching down and turning off the shower, grabbing a towel and opening the door.

"Oh gee, you're a fly kid-" that hideous nonsense was still going on, but he smiled, coming to sit behind Ed on the bed where he sat brushing his hair. He wrapped his arms around his friend, and Ed tensed and immediately ceased the song. "Al?" he said questioningly, twisting around trying to face his friend.

"That's a terrible song, Ed," he mumbled into his back, pressing his face into the other boy's flesh shoulder.

"And that gets me a hug?" Ed asked, plainly confused.

"Yeah."

"Don't you have to go to class?"

"Yeah," Al said again, but didn't move.


	24. Finding the Catch: Hard Truth

_**Shingo-sama, Abstractication, and KristalChan:** Thank you!_

_**Spork111:** Happy birthday_

_**Animefan127: **Hmmm, Ed is from Rizembool, Alphonse Heiderich is from Germany. In that chapter they are both in Munich together._

_**Eleventy-Nine**: hehe. Are they gonna do it? Hmmmmm. #shameless plug# keep an eye out for my next story in the works, called "Zwanzig Fragen," which takes place in the same universe but centers entirely around Ed and Al H. You may find your question answered there._

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**Finding the Catch: Hard Truth**

He was staring at himself.

Quickly he squeezed his eyes shut. "Go away," he heard his own voice say, and he cracked them open again. "You're not real, you can't be, go away!"

Panicked, Alphonse scrambled out of the bed, yanking the blankets off with him.

His _self_ (because he did not know what else to call this animated reflection of his) sat up in bed, then threw himself down again, facing his pillow. "I'm closing my eyes," came the muffled words. "I'm counting to ten, no, I'm counting to a hundred, and when I'm done, you're not going to be here anymore!"

Not sure why he did it, Alphonse ducked into the bathroom and flicked on the light, staring at himself in the mirror. Maybe he was expecting his reflection not to be there anymore, as it was currently burying its head in the pillows back in the bed.

_It was him._ This was his face as he saw it in his mind's eye, as he had last seen his reflection at Winry's house in Altenburg. Long, bronze colored hair tied back. The half man, half child's face of a teenager. Large, deep grey eyes. He ran back to the bedroom.

"Who are you?" he demanded of the person in the bed.

He lifted his head from the pillow. "Am I dead?" he asked, shocking Alphonse. Dead. That was one explanation he had yet to entertain. "What happened? Where's Ed?"

His breath caught in his throat. "You know Ed?" he asked hopefully.

"Of course I know Ed, he's my-" his not-reflection stopped. "Who _are _you?"

Part of his mind wanted to giggle hysterically, wanted to say, no fair, I asked you first! His heart was racing but he forced himself to remain calm. Whatever was going on, he was going to figure it out. "I'm Alphonse Elric," he said clearly, watching the shock and something like horror flood over the other man's face. "Where's my brother?"

Suddenly there was a loud knocking at the door. "Stay there," he was ordered, and the man grabbed a shirt and hurried to answer it, closing the bedroom door tightly. Alphonse stood for a moment, then opened the door just a crack and peered out.

It was Mr. Silleman, the man who had taken him to the burned down lab yesterday. "Alphonse," he was saying, "Are you all right? You look like you've seen a ghost!"

The other Alphonse glanced back at the bedroom door, then turned back to the man in the doorway. "I'm fine," he said breathlessly. "What's going on, all I remember is getting ready to leave the lab with Ed and then everything was on fire-"

The man's eyes widened. "You remember!" he exclaimed. "You know about the lab, you know where you are, you know how old you are?"

Alphonse nodded impatiently. "Of course I know those things, but… there was an explosion, wasn't there?"

"You were in the hospital yesterday. You couldn't remember anything," Mr. Silleman said slowly.

"Well I remember everything now," Al said, his voice rising. "But _what happened to Edward?"_

Mr. Silleman cleared his throat. "We, ah, were hoping that when you regained your memories, you would tell us Edward wasn't with you in the lab," he began.

Alphonse paled.

"The entire building was destroyed," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."

Alphonse stood, staring at the now closed front door. Slowly, he walked over to the couch, and sat down.

Al opened the bedroom door and stepped cautiously out, sitting down in the chair facing his other self. "You're Alphonse Heiderich," he said carefully, beginning to piece things together.

The other Alphonse jumped. "What of it?" he asked, his voice flat. "Leave me alone, whatever you are. I've just lost my best friend."

"Edward's my brother," he whispered. "And-" here he hesitated. "I don't think he's dead."

The older Alphonse leaned back against the cushions, his expression dazed. "Edward's brother," he said softly, "looks just like me." Suddenly he clutched his head in his hands. "Oh my god." He cringed. "When he said I look like his brother- oh my god."


	25. Finding the Catch: To Be Your You

_**Everyone:**_ _I think I wrote and deleted this chapter five or so times before I was satisfied with what I had. It's pretty long, and I'm happy with it that way, I hope you feel the same way! Camudekyu, I also love Al talking to Al. in fact, this story originally had 35 chapters, but I added an extra one in there just to get all of that Al/Al interaction out of my system (for now anyway). Shaded Rouge, do you mean a whole story arch that didn't have straight and yaoi in it, or just for the same character? That's an interesting observation either way, because it really fits with the theme of my story. Yes, the plot is about Ed coming home, and his and Al's search for each other, but really, its about how many ways there are to love someone in a lifetime. I guess it is a little corny to say it that way, but I think it's true. The concept of one true pairing, as applied to fanfic and to life, is just a myth. things change, people change, and love changes. Abby-WCD, what is so bad about chemistry? Doesn't it make you feel closer to Ed? lol. And to everyone else who left reviews, thank you ever so much. They are like crack to me._

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**Finding the Catch: To Be Your You**

"I thought you were in Central," Winry said, surprised. She wore a loose dress to hide her expanding waistline, but Riza's quick glance over her figure betrayed her secret.

"I've had to travel a lot. The president has both General Mustang and I working on a very important operation." She frowned. "The man is impossible to work with. He can't seem to keep a schedule; he was supposed to arrive in Central two days before me and I just called headquarters and he still isn't there."

"Oh," Winry said. "That's because he's here. He brought some books for Ed, from some top secret archive or something." She shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, you probably weren't expecting to run into him."

"It doesn't matter," Riza said crisply. "It's good, actually, I have some information I need to deliver to him personally."

Winry shifted the bag of groceries in her arms. "Well, you were on your way to visit us, right?"

Riza nodded, falling in step beside the younger woman. "How many months along are you?" she ventured, then had to stoop to catch the bag Winry nearly dropped.

"Can you really tell?" she asked, wide eyed.

"Of course. Before long everyone will be able to," she said gently. She tilted her head to one side. "I don't know if 'congratulations' is exactly appropriate, but you have my best wishes, of course. If you need anything at all-"

"Five months," she whispered. She let that information sink in; it had been five months since Ed had come home.

"Have you been to the doctor?"

Winry nodded, wordless.

Riza pressed a card into her palm. "I'm mostly working at the military base outside of Dillon, its not more than an hours drive from here," she said. "Don't hesitate to call me if you need anything."

She took the card, tucking it into her pocket. "Thank you," she said sincerely.

After a few minutes of walking in silence, Riza spoke again. "You haven't told him, have you?" she asked, her voice thick with concern.

Winry glanced over to her with a pained expression. "What should I say? Ed, I'm going to have a baby, and it might be yours, but, on the other hand, it might be your younger brother's, who you love more than anything and are spending every waking hour trying to find, and who is also six years younger than me and just a teenager?" She shook her head. "How could anything possibly go so wrong?"

Riza pressed her lips together, not allowing herself to pass any judgment. "If that's the truth, Winry, that may be the best thing to say, even if it is hard to admit," she said slowly. "Keeping secrets can ruin a relationship."

"We don't _have_ a relationship!" Winry exploded, causing several heads to turn, and she blushed, waiting for them to turn away before she continued. "I don't even know who he is anymore! Its like there's a stranger living in my house who only looks like my best friend who's been gone for six years!"

"People change," Riza said delicately. "You don't know where he's been or what he's gone through. But he still thinks of you as his family-"

"I know who he _was,_" she continued. "I know who I imagined him to be, and I know who I want him to be. But really, I don't know anything about him!"

The older woman sighed, reluctant to offer any more advice. After all, who was she to tell anyone how a relationship should be?

When they arrived at Winry's house, Riza followed her up the outside stairs over the workshop and through the back door into the kitchen. Edward and Roy had been sitting at the table arguing over a map they had spread out, and Roy all but jumped out of his seat when he saw Riza enter the room.

"I was on my way to Central to meet with you," she said coldly. "It's a good thing I happened to stop here, isn't it?"

Roy's grin was playful, but a shred of panic was visible behind his eye. "How did you know I didn't know you would be here?" he said, almost smoothly, backing up when she strode towards him.

"I need to speak to you," she said, her words clipped, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him into the other room. "It's important," she added, pulling the door closed behind her.

Ed stood and took the groceries from Winry, beginning to put them away for her. She sat down with a tired sigh and looked at the map spread out over the kitchen table. "Ed?" she asked curiously.

"Hm?" he said, opening and closing cabinets and putting things in their places.

"What's this a map of?"

"The desert. Ishbal. East City," he answered.

The door opened a crack. "I need to use your phone, Miss Rockbell," Roy said urgently.

Winry waved permission to him, not even turning around. "Go ahead," she told him, and the door was shut again. "What are you doing?"

Ed turned around, reaching over her shoulder to point to a circled area. "This is where they found Al," he said. "He was unconscious and in the middle of an array. An Ishbalan array, he's got drawings of it and diagrams and notes and explanations and definitions and everything in here," he told her, gesturing to the thick file of papers he had taken from his brother's desk.

"Ed-"

"It seems like it should have worked, it's brilliant, actually," he continued, pushing past her interruption with more life than he had shown her all month, "I never really studied alchemy like this before, and it's so different from what we studied with Izumi that I'm not even sure it _is_ alchemy, per se-"

She had twisted around in the chair, facing him as he spoke, his expression animated and his voice rushing at her. "_Ed,"_ she said again, more forcefully this time.

He pulled the chair across from her out from the table and sat down in it, leaning towards her, and she turned around again. "Do you know what this means, Win?" he said urgently.

A thousand explanations echoed through her mind, and her eyes narrowed. "You're planning something," she accused. "That's what it means," she said darkly.

He threw up his hands, exasperated. "Of course I'm planning something!" he cried "The moment I saw him in East City, the second I knew what he had done and what happened to him, I was planning something, it's just taken some time to figure things out! He's not gone, Winry, I know where he is, he's where I was all those years, on the other side of the Gate, he has to be." Her yet unspoken protest floored him; he was utterly confused. "Don't you _want_ me to bring him back?" he asked, frowning.

"Not if it means losing you again," she whispered, before she could even think, stunned at her own words.

_What did she mean by that? How could she speak such words?_ Edward stared at her, unmoving, as if they were both frozen. _She had never been made to choose, it had never been about choosing between the two brothers. She loved them both, and they were all that remained of her family now. Edward had been gone, she hadn't chosen Al over him because there had never been a choice. _She blinked several times, trying to make sense of her own words, becoming conscious of the stranger staring at her from across the table.

The door to the living room flew open and Roy and Riza were suddenly in the room, Riza saying something about them both having to leave immediately. "Fullmetal, I'll contact you in a few days about transportation," Roy said, looking back over his shoulder on his way out the door.

Winry watched them go. "What's he talking about?" she asked, not facing Ed.

"I'm going to Ishbal," he said cautiously, still shocked by her previous words. "To where Al was found. Roy is assembling some kind of top secret military unit to go with me, just in case I need… protection."

She spun around. "You're _leaving_?"

This was not Winry about to pull her wrench on him, this was an entirely different kind of anger emanating from her. "Yeah…"

"You can't _leave_!" she shrieked. "Edward Elric, you _asshole_, how dare you leave me right now!"

He stood to face her, their eyes were level now, they were exactly the same height. "What is _wrong _with you?" he demanded, his eyes blazing. "I'm not leaving you," he said angrily, "I'm trying to bring Al back to you! Isn't that what you want? Because it sure as hell is the only thing _I _want!" He slammed his flesh hand into the table. "He doesn't deserve to be in that place while I'm here; home. He doesn't deserve to pay the price for what I did!" He spoke to her through clenched teeth. "He wasn't trying to sacrifice himself. He thought that array would work, and that we'd both be together and safe. He never guessed we would switch places! And I'm going to find a way to bring him back, I know I can."

Winry shook her head fiercely. "No, you're going to disappear again, and you can't do that to me, not now!" she protested.

He stared at her, his mouth hanging open. "How can you possibly-" he sputtered, his anger overtaking his speech. "What are you- _I'm only trying to set things right! _I can't- I couldn't _live _with myself knowing that Al's in that place without trying to get him back, how can you even ask that of me?"

"I-I'm not," she tried, not even sure of what she was saying. "That's not what I meant-"

His eyes were terrible, and she backed away as he shouted, "how can you say you love him so much if you don't want him back?"

"Ed, I didn't-"

But she could not manage any words he might listen to, and he spun around, turning to storm out of the room. "Don't you even speak to me!" he shouted, jerking the door open. She could hear his mismatched footsteps pounding up the stairs, and felt her body sinking to its knees on the hard tile floor. How could anything possibly be so wrong?

It was after midnight when she heard him coming back down the steps. She had been trying unsuccessfully to sort through feelings she did not want to confront for hours now, and her heart pounded as she could hear him coming closer.

He did not acknowledge her even with a glare when he entered the room, he just began gathering up the things he and Roy had been pouring over when Winry had returned with Riza.

"Ed?" she said cautiously.

He pretended he did not hear her.

"I have to tell you something."

"Well, I don't want to talk to you right now," he said stiffly, not looking at her, stuffing papers into various folders and stacking them inefficiently. Had she been sitting there, like that, arms around her knees on the floor all night? He felt a pang of sympathy, followed closely by another blow of guilt. He never meant to involve her in his pain, his sin. How many more people would he hurt?

"Can you really be angry with me for not wanting to lose you?" she asked in a small voice.

"Winry, I don't understand you at all, not one bit," he said, shaking his head, still not looking at her. His voice was hollow. "Al is the most important thing in my life, and I never thought you, being my best friend, wouldn't understand why I need to find a way to bring him back." He pressed his lips together. "And I don't think there's anything you can tell me that will make me understand that."

"I'm afraid that I'm going to lose you both," she whispered. "What if you both end up stuck in that place, or- or worse?"

He finally looked at her. "Then we'll be together," he said calmly.

She took a deep breath. "Ed, I'm going to have a baby."

He blinked. "What?"

"I'm pregnant. If you go, I'll be all alone. And so will the baby."

He gaped at her. "You and Al…?"

She forced herself not to break his gaze, and shook her head slowly.

His gold eyes widened further, and his skin paled. He seemed to sway where he stood. "It can't be… mine?"

She nodded. "I think so."

"But-"

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, the words pouring out of her, searching his face for some kind of response. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I'm sorry for all the things I said this afternoon, I know I must have sounded insane to you. It's not that I don't want you to try to bring Al back, I do, I miss him more than anything, but… I'm afraid to be alone."

He just stared at her. "You didn't tell me," he said finally.

"I didn't know until a few weeks ago, and… I did try, a few times."

His gold eyebrows rose. "You didn't try very hard."

"I was scared," she admitted.

"Of?" he prompted.

"I thought you would be angry," she said quietly, looking away. "I thought you wouldn't want a family, not now, not with me, not after… you said you regretted it. You said you wished it never happened. You hated it."

His eyes widened again. "I didn't hate it!" he protested. He sat down in one of the chairs, staring at the table. "I definitely didn't hate it," he repeated. _Why do you hide things from me?_ he asked in his mind, but he did not speak the question. How many things had he hid from her over the years? How many things was he hiding from her now? He felt he could suddenly read her expressions in a way he never could before, or perhaps it was only that he never tried. The relief and, was it almost joy? that smoothed her features caused his heart to wrench.

_"Ed, you cant be serious! You expect me to believe you?" Al asked him teasingly. "You've never been on a date?"_

_He just shrugged. "C'mon, what girl would want to go on a date with me?"_

_Al's expression was mocking. "I dunno, a bookworm maybe, someone who drowns herself in other people's words, just like you do. Imagine how much you'd have to talk about!"_

_Ed rolled his eyes. "I have you for that, Al."_

_Al laughed. "Well, that's very sweet, but I worry about you, you know? You never try to meet anyone. Aren't you even interested in girls?"_

_Ed fixed him with a serious gaze. "I have more important things to think about, you know that. I don't have time for dates and girls." He snorted. "Besides, what kind of girl," he asked his friend slowly, "could possibly find me attractive?" His eyes took on that faraway look they got sometimes, the one that made Al's mind burn with questions he never dared to ask. "Unless there's someone out there who has a thing for mechanical parts."_

"_Well, I think you're pretty attractive," Al said shyly. "Mechanical parts and all."_

_His friend just rolled his eyes again, returning to stirring his coffee. "There was a girl, once," he said softly, in a brief moment of honesty. "She was my best friend, and my brother's best friend." He gave a light laugh. "Hell, she was practically the only girl I knew, or noticed, at least. And she was very beautiful."_

"_What happened to her?" Al asked hesitantly. Ed's voice was so soft, and his eyes were so sad, that he half expected Ed to tell him that this girl had died, or that something else tragic had come between them._

"_I don't know," he said, very quietly. "She probably wonders the same thing about me." He pushed his chair away from the table, standing abruptly and tossing a few bills on the table to pay for their coffee. "Let's get out of here," he said shortly, making it very clear that the reminiscence was over._

No, he definitely didn't hate it. "You're not going to be alone, Winry," he said slowly. "I promise, I'm not going to leave you alone."

Her voice had a cold edge to it when she spoke. "You've said that before," she accused. "You always said you would come back."

He looked at her blankly. "No, I didn't," he said, and it was true, she realized suddenly, her heart sinking into her stomach. The Ed in her mind, the Ed in her dreams had held her and promised he would come back to her. The Ed in reality had only promised to make things right again. "But I'm saying it now. I'm not going to leave you alone."


	26. Finding the Catch: Dissolving Disbelief

_**Everyone who went back to school:** good luck with this term!_

_**Garen Ruy Maxwell**: Let this be a lesson to you then, kids. Random sex can lead to random pregnancies. _

_**Camudekyu: **Well, she doesn't want him to leave. (is trying really hard not to let the story become soap-opera-ish)_

_**Shaded Rouge:** Wow. I've done something original, then. O.o_

_**All other reviewers**: thank you for reading and commenting. Enjoy this chapter

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**Finding the Catch: Dissolving Disbelief**

"Alphonse?" his voice sounded weird calling his own name, but the younger boy looked up from what he was doing. _Reading Ed's alchemy books,_ he noted. He had always thought it strange that Ed was so fascinated by the archaic science. Now his brother was devouring the books at the same rate Ed had absorbed his physics texts from the University. "Do you want to get lunch?" He didn't know what made him ask. It was almost as if part of him though that he was Ed, and when Ed became engrossed in something, he needed to be reminded to eat. Sometimes he even had to be forcibly dragged out of the house. But this wasn't Ed.

Al laid a bookmark on the page and closed the book, standing up. "Sure," he said cautiously. He reached for his red cloak he had draped over the back of the chair, but the older Alphonse was holding out another garment for him.

"Wear this," he said shortly. "It won't stand out so much." He watched as the younger boy pulled his arms through the sleeves. "It's Ed's," he added. They left the apartment and Al followed Al down the street. "There's a little café that Ed and I always go to," he said, more because he was uncomfortable with the silence than anything else.

"It's funny," he said after a moment, "That I'm wearing Ed's coat. That red coat is his too; I started wearing it after he disappeared because I missed him so much. At first people thought I was him."

"Well they wont think you're him now," Alphonse told him. "You're too tall." He glanced behind them, once, as if making a crack about Ed's height might cause him to jump out of an alleyway and attack them. Oh if only.

He continued the list in his head. You're too polite. Your voice is different, it sounds just like mine. Your hair is shorter than Ed's, and darker. You're much younger. Your eyes- here he looked at his companion critically. They don't look like mine, or his. Your eyes are your own. You're not as thin. You look healthier, and happier. Your steps are even; you don't walk with a limp. Your body is whole.

A little bell jingled when they pushed open the door of the café. Bernard, the owner, looked at them curiously but only asked them what they would like to drink.

"Hot chocolate," they said in unison, then glared at each other suspiciously. "with whipped cream," they both added.

Alphonse Heiderich narrowed his eyes as they sat down at a small table near the back. "You can't read my mind, can you?" he accused.

"No!" Al protested innocently. "I like hot chocolate, I always have."

"Ed hates it."

"I know."

They stirred the steaming liquid silently, each pausing to take a too-hot sip now and then.

"This doesn't mean we're the same person," Al H said abruptly.

"I know."

One of the café waiters, not Bernard himself, brought their sandwiches, and they began to eat, each staring at the other when he thought he wasn't being watched.

"I believe you," Al said finally. "It sounds crazy, but I do. Maybe it's only because I want to believe that Ed is alive somewhere."

"He _is_ alive," Alphonse Elric insisted. "He's probably at home right now. That man said they never found a body, right? That's because my transmutation worked. I brought him back."

"But how did you get here?"

The younger boy shrugged. "Equivalent Exchange," he said simply.

"Ed says that all the time."

Al nodded seriously. "I'm sure he does. It's the first principle of alchemy. And its part of your science, too, isn't it?"

"Ed says a lot of strange things," he continued, to himself more than to the other Al. "He was even worse when we first met. Sometimes I thought he was joking when he would act like he didn't know certain things," he said, staring at the surface of the table and pushing his napkin around, "like about history or politics or something, because I figured, how could someone who's obviously so smart not know these things? And you!" he said, staring at Al. "He was always talking about how he was trying to get back to you, and I thought it never made sense, because he never went anywhere looking for you. He went places looking for information about rockets and physics and aircraft and such, and he said it was to get back to you, but that only made it sound like you lived on another planet! And that only made me think he was mad." He put his mug down on the table with a clink. "I can't believe he never told me."

Al looked puzzled. "How could he have told you? You wouldn't have believed him."

"I believe _you_," he protested.

Al just shook his head, taking another sip of chocolate. "I just don't understand how alchemy can't work here. I don't really know what to do about… any of this. I'm an alchemist, and there's no alchemy," he said helplessly. "It's like I'm back where I started, only-" he set his cup down on the table and sat back, the realization washing over him. _This is the exact desperate situation Edward must have been in. _"Without alchemy, there is no way to get home!"

Alphonse leaned forward. "Don't say that," he told his double, his gaze intense. "Ed was always looking for a way to get back to you. It was what drove his every action, he said so himself. He never gave up."

Al's mind was racing. According to what he had been told, Ed had spent years working on the design for this rocket. Did Ed believe that he could fly through the gate? Up in space? Al shook his head. That seemed impossible to him. But then, this whole world seemed impossible.

"Why are you so young?" Alphonse asked him suddenly, and he blinked, focusing again on his older self. "I thought Ed said his brother was only a year younger than him, so you and I should be the same age, but we're not, are we?"

"Oh, my body is younger than my real age," Al said distantly. "I was born in '01. I'm a lot older than I look; my body is only sixteen."

Did he not realize how odd that explanation sounded? Alphonse frowned. "Why is your body only sixteen? What happened to you?"

The look on his face was so similar to his brother's when he was asked certain questions that Alphonse could not help but stare. That expression, he thought, is exactly like Ed's expression when I asked him what happened to his limbs… and Ed's missing limbs were connected in some way to his brother's life… hadn't Ed said something like that once? He lost his arm trying to save his brother?

"I can't explain it to you," the younger boy said stiffly. "You wouldn't understand."


	27. Silent Reverie

_Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing! Enjoy this chapter!_

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Silent Reverie**

Roy had been back at work for less than a week, and as eager as he had been to return to some semblance of a normal life, he was now equally eager to return to his quiet home. The paperwork he had been left with seemed unending (and it nearly was, he had been on leave for a long time and although others had tried to help out, there were always certain things that only he was authorized to take care of) and his mind and body both felt suddenly not up to the challenge.

He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, trying to ease the pressure of what felt like the beginnings of a massive headache, and winced at the pain that shot through his right hip, shifting awkwardly in his chair.

"Sir?"

"Hm?" he answered, not lifting his head from his hand or raising his single eye to the familiar voice.

"Someone is here to see you," Riza said quietly. "Should I tell him to come back later?"

Roy groaned. "Who is it?"

"Well, sir, he claims to be Alphonse Elric."

This caused him to drop his hand down on the desk and lift his head at last. "He's been located? What about Fullmetal?"

She merely shook her head. "He wont say anything about him," she said briskly. "I know you aren't feeling well, would you like me to tell him to come back?"

"No!" he said, his voice sounding strangled. "No," he repeated in a more even tone. "Send him in. Please," he added.

He did not really know what to expect to see come walking through his door. He had never seen a picture of Alphonse in his human form, and he was still picturing that hulking armor when Riza said "Alphonse."

"Edward," he gasped when he saw him. Were miracles possible? Had the boys actually survived? Was there a shred of goodness still in the world?

The boy in the red coat backed up, startled. "No," his young voice spoke. "It's Alphonse." Grey eyes darted from side to side, betraying his nervousness.

Roy let out a breath he did not even know he was holding. "Then- you succeeded. You found the Stone."

"No," the boy protested. "No, we didn't succeed. Brother is- I- I have to find my brother," he said brokenly.

He rose slowly from the desk, taking up his cane and moving closer to the boy, crouching awkwardly in front of him, flinching at the pain in his hip. "He did it," Roy whispered. "He did the impossible. You're really human."

Al frowned. "But now he's gone!" he cried, his eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Please, you have to help me find him!"

"Alphonse," he said slowly, "did you find the Philosopher's Stone?"

The boy looked down at the floor. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I'm not sure. I can't remember anything." He raised his large eyes to meet Roy's single one. "I don't remember anything from being in the armor." After a moment, he continued, "I think we found it, and I think we didn't use it. But I'm not sure."

_If he used the Philosopher's Stone,_ Roy told himself, _then he should be here. If he didn't- _here he looked away. _If he didn't, then he's really gone. _He stood. "Alphonse, I will do everything I can to help locate your brother," he said finally, and could not meet his eyes when they lit up like that.

"Thank you!" he cried. "Oh, thank you!" he said again, turning and running out of the room, the red coat flying behind him.

Roy watched him from his office window, the small figure dressed in red and black exiting the building, talking excitedly to a woman with long blonde hair, the boy's mechanic friend. She nodded, and they began to walk away, and she put her arm around his shoulders, pulling him to her side before they separated again.

Perhaps, he thought to himself, not all things impossible were really impossible.


	28. Friends and Lovers

**Friends and Lovers**

Al had been wandering around the house all morning, poking his head into everything. It made Alphonse Heiderich nervous, as if he were under an inspection of some sort. He followed the younger boy on his self-guided tour of the apartment, staying several steps behind him.

He had opened the cabinets and eyed the chipped plates critically. He shook out the dusty curtains and pushed them open and grimaced at the cloudy glass in the windows. He sat down heavily on the couch and then stood, only to fall back on it again. He propped his feet up on the coffee table, took them down, stood, and stared at Alphonse's bookshelves. "How long have you lived here?" he asked.

"Seven years," he answered slowly. "Ed's lived here for six."

"How did he find you?" Al asked, turning the corner into their small bedroom, plopping down on the narrow bed.

Alphonse followed him, watching him from the doorway. As much as he missed Ed, he understood that this other Alphonse must be missing him more. It was like the boy was trying to touch everything his brother had touched, see everything his brother had seen, because there was no other way to get to him. "Ah, we met in the University Library," he told him. "I thought he was a bit strange, because he was staring at me. Later he told me it was because he thought I was you, at first."

Al lay back on the bed, his legs still hanging over the edge. "What did he do?" he asked, staring up at the cracked ceiling.

Alphonse shrugged. "Nothing really. He said hello, I guess. We talked a little about books." He walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge, staring at his younger face. "You know what he was doing there in the first place? He was looking for a way to get back to you." He meant the statement to be comforting, and winced as he watched Al squeeze his eyes shut and turn his head away, bringing his arm up to cover his face.

Eventually Al sighed, and sat up again. "You'd better get working on that rocket," he told his double. "You've still got all the plans, you can make another one."

Alphonse groaned. "It will take forever to build it myself," he protested. "I don't even know if I _can_, there were some parts of it that only Ed understood."

"You're not going to build it yourself," Al told him seriously. "I'm going to help."

"You?" Alphonse scoffed, and immediately felt bad for reacting that way when he saw the younger boy's hurt expression. "You said yourself that science here in completely different," he tried to explain, but Al was already shaking his head.

"It's not _that _different," he said defensively, standing up and walking over to the window and looking out at the dreary sidewalks. "Besides, I'm a genius. Didn't you know that?"

When he turned around, there was a mischievous glimmer in his grey eyes that startled the older Alphonse, and he winked.

"As modest as your brother," he said softly, shaking his head.

Al just smiled. "Anyway, my girlfriend is a mechanic. I've learned a lot from watching her destroy- er, disassemble stuff."

Alphonse laughed at that. He was starting to feel more comfortable with his double, and the laugh came easily. He felt less awkward about staring at the boy now, comparing him with his brother and then comparing him with himself, because he realized that Al was doing the same thing. If he caught him staring, he would just smile with understanding. It wasn't that he knew _what_ his double was thinking, but after spending enough time with him he was fairly certain he knew _how _he was thinking. "Yeah, okay," he told the boy. "Mr. Silleman told me that the government has a new lab set up for whenever I want to come back to work." He sighed. "I just haven't felt like working on that stuff, you know, alone."

Al nodded. "Well, you wont be alone," he said simply.

Alphonse gave him a hesitant smile. "Thanks."

The younger boy walked back to the bed and flopped down on it again, grabbing one of the pillows and bunching it up under his chin. "So you and my brother share a bed," he said unexpectedly.

Alphonse cringed. "Yeah."

Al regarded him intently for a minute. "So did we, when we were little kids," he said evenly. "I guess he probably still kicks in his sleep?"

_When he isn't having terrifying nightmares, he does. _Alphonse just nodded, feeling a bit suspicious of this line of questioning.

The boy sat up, throwing the pillow to one side. "Well, you're not me," Al said with a sudden fierceness.

Certain that this had long since already been determined, the other Alphonse merely nodded. "I know," he agreed.

The younger boy had his arms crossed in front of him and an eerie look behind his eyes. "So what exactly _are_ you to my brother? His lover?" he asked boldly. "Or just his friend?"

_They were sitting under the open window, staring up at the red summer moon. They had piled their pillows on the floor, because Edward insisted that heat rises and it would be cooler to sleep at the lowest point in the apartment. Now he sat, leaning back between Al's legs, his back pressed against the larger boy's chest. Al had his arms settled around his friend, and they sat like this, breathing almost in unison and listening to the sounds on the street below._

_"Ed," he said after a while. "I don't think we can pay rent this month."_

_"Eh, don't worry about it," came the slow response. "We'll be fine."_

_"Well, it's due tomorrow, and I don't think we can even manage half of it," he pressed._

_Ed shook his head, his soft hair moving under Al's chin. "It's already paid," he said, smiling to himself. "Just relax."_

_"But how-"_

_"I asked my father for money," Ed said shortly. "So don't worry about it."_

_"Oh." The sound of a large automobile passing by the apartment was the only noise for a moment, and then they heard a dog barking somewhere blocks away. "Did you thank him?"_

_"You can thank him if you want. He likes you better than me anyway."_

_He pressed his cheek into the other boy's blonde hair and sighed contentedly. "Ed, I love you. You know that, right?"_

_He could feel Ed's ribs shake as he snickered softly. "Yeah, it is nice knowing you'll have a place to live for the next month, isn't it?"_

_Alphonse shoved him lightly. "Ed!" he protested._

_Ed leaned back into him, looking up towards the ceiling. "Oh, were we being serious?" he said innocently, his smirk upside down from this angle._

"_Yes!"_

"_Mmm," was the lazy response. "Then I love you too, Al."_

_Alphonse marveled at how easily he said it. "You're my best friend," he said easily._

_The silence lasted several minutes, until finally Ed twisted in his friend's arms, turning to face him. "Al, you're more than just a friend to me."_

_Al's heart began to race, and he wondered vaguely if Edward could feel it through his chest. "Yes?" he urged._

_Ed just sighed and turned back around, leaning back against him. Alphonse flinched as he felt Ed's heavy metal arm dig into his side once again, but said nothing. _

"_You're like my brother."_

He couldn't bring himself to tell this to Al, it would be too cruel.

"I don't know," he said softly. "Both, I guess."


	29. Finding the Catch

_**Everyone:**_ _Thanks for being patient with the updates, I know I've slowed down a little bit, posting every three or four days instead of every two, but I've been going back and editing a lot of things a long the way, and I think it's been worth it. That's part of why Part 2 has longer chapters than Part 1. I'm really proud of this chapter, so I hope you enjoy!_

_**KristalChan: **#hopes your ankle is feeling better# Al is used to asking a lot of questions about everything since he lost his memories of being in armor, its like he's formed a habit of trying to reconstruct situations he can't really remember, so that he can continue on. And Al H is being so honest because come on, can you lie to yourself? I imagine it might feel pretty weird :P_

_**Yuugiamythest:** Like he says in this chapter, Ed doesn't know who he loves how. When you're in a situation, as opposed to just observing it, I think it would be pretty hard to tell, you know they say hindsight is 20/20, or something like that. As for Al loving Winry, he does, he loves her very much, but if you think about it, he's been harboring romantic feelings for her since before he was even old enough to understand what romantic feelings really were. As he got older, I think he just sort of assumed he was in love with her. Whether or not he really is is yet to be revealed…_

_**All those who asked for an update:** it is here! Sorry it took a few extra days, but it is extra long, so does that make up for it:P_

* * *

**Finding the Catch**

She gasped when she saw him. He stood grinning on the platform, his blonde ponytail blowing off to the side behind him. His hair looked lighter, and his face was tanned, like he had spent many days on end out in the sun. _Well, he was in the desert,_ she told herself, smiling inwardly. He was wearing a maroon button down shirt and black pants, and carrying his old brown suitcase. She raised her hand in a wave above her head as she climbed the stairs into the small station, and closed the distance between them with several long steps. Winry stood in front of him for a moment, hesitating, then threw her arms awkwardly around him, her swollen stomach pressing into him. "What are you wearing?" she asked, poking him in the side.

He laughed. "Yes, Winry, it is very nice to see you too," he said, his eyes dancing, and she let go of him. "What kind of greeting is that?"

"Hi Ed, welcome back," she said then, and glanced over at his companion. "Hello General, thanks for bringing him back safe," she said.

He nodded. "Anything for you, Miss Rockbell," he said, charm emanating from his being.

She took Ed's metal arm in her own as they began to walk away from the platform. "Are you coming back with us?" she asked Roy, glancing over at him.

He shook his head "No, I've got a car waiting for me," he said, gesturing to the black military issue automobile parked outside the station. "I've got to get back to the office in Central before it falls apart without me."

"You sound like Hawkeye," Winry teased, and he winked (blinked?) at her. He waved to them as he opened the car door, and Ed pulled away from her and turned, raising his metal hand stiffly and touching it to his forehead in a mock-salute, grinning. The General smirked and saluted back before ducking into the car and pulling away.

"How are you doing?" Edward asked her softly as they made their way through the town streets.

She shrugged. "I feel very fat," she admitted.

He clamped his mouth shut, _you look very fat_ was something Roy had warned him not to say out loud.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

He nodded excitedly. "Yes, I really did. Everything-" he was about to launch into a detailed explanation about the differences between the alchemy he had studied and the Forbidden Art of Ishbal, but she interrupted him.

"Where did you get those clothes?" she asked.

He looked down at himself. "What's wrong with my clothes?" he demanded. "Are you saying I look stupid?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "No, I think you look nice," she told him, and she thought she saw him blush.

"Roy said I needed clothes that fit," he mumbled, looking at the ground. "He made me go shopping with him in East City before we came back here."

She giggled. "Sounds terrible," she teased.

He groaned. "Well, the thing is, we had to be so cautious in Ishbal, and around all those military people, because Roy's afraid someone will recognize me and it will get back to the president- apparently being dead does not excuse my crimes of desertion and insubordination, towards a military that isn't even in power any more," he complained, "But then he insisted on dragging me all over East City, where anyone could have seen me." He frowned. "But no one seemed to recognize me; I don't really look that different, do I?" he asked her.

She laughed again. "Well I knew who you were the minute I saw you, so I guess not," she told him.

She followed him around the side of her house to the stairs that went up the back, over the workshop, and huffed impatiently when he seemed to be taking each step one at a time, deliberately going slow. "Geez, Ed, hurry up," she said, giving him a poke in the small of his back. He stopped, turning around to glare at her, but said nothing. Winry rolled her eyes when she realized why he was moving so slowly: he was carrying his suitcase in his human hand, and the metal hand was not able to grab onto the railing for the balance he sorely needed on the steep outside steps, which were nothing more than wooden slats evenly placed on an incline, with a space between each one. "Oh for god's sake, gimme the freakin suitcase," she said, grabbing for it, but he jerked it away.

"No way," he insisted, holding it out of her reach. "You're pregnant, you don't get to carry anything!"

"Quit being so stubborn," she grumbled, taking a hold of his metal arm, offering him the balance he needed.

"Quit treating me like a cripple," he grumbled back. "You're so impatient. I'm fine."

"Well how am I supposed to treat you when you take an hour to get up the stairs?"

"I am not taking an hour! You're the one who looks like you're about to burst, _I'm_ supposed to be helping _you_- OW!" he dropped the suitcase to clutch his throbbing forehead.

"ARE YOU CALLING ME FAT, EDWARD ELRIC?" She stood, towering over him, two steps up, and shaking her wrench in the air.

"I WASN'T BUT NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT YOU HAVE NEARLY DOUBLED IN SIZE!" he retorted, hands on his hips, staring up at her from the lower step.

They stood like that, gazes locked, trying their hardest to keep those deathly glares on their faces, but Winry broke first, the corners of her mouth twitching up in what threatened to be a smile.

Edward bent to pick up his suitcase, trying to hide his snickers behind his fringe of hair, but when he could hear the giggles escaping the woman above him he stood, letting a full grin spread across his face. Winry extended her hand, and Ed let her take his and help him the rest of the way up the stairs, and held the door open for her so she could go inside first.

They passed through the kitchen and Winry sat stiffly down on the couch, groaning. "I'm so tired," she said, rubbing her lower back with her hand. "I was going to make us dinner, but I think I'm going to take a nap instead. Maybe we could order in." She sighed. "I was all ready to cook you something, too, but I just don't have the energy."

Ed had set his suitcase down beside the couch, and now stood in front of her, rubbing the back of his head. _Yeah, you used it all up yelling at me, _he thought to himself. "Ah, you don't have to cook for me, Win, its not like you're my wife or something," he said hesitantly, watching the glare return to her face. "Go take a nap, I'll fix dinner," he offered.

She looked up at him through narrowed eyes. "Are you implying that it's the wife's job to cook every night?" she snapped.

He rolled his eyes. "No," he said patiently, "I'm trying to be nice, because you're tired, so you and the baby should rest."

"You know how to cook?" she asked suspiciously.

He laughed. "I swear, I won't burn down the kitchen," he told her.

She glared at him a moment longer, then pressed her hands on her thighs, standing up with an effort. "I'm glad you're back," she said, more to herself than to him.

* * *

"Are you really ready to go back to that place?" Roy asked him softly, staring out the window of the train at the passing scenery.

"I'm not going to go back," Ed said stubbornly.

Roy turned his single eye on the younger man, regarding him seriously. "Did it ever occur to you," he said slowly, "That you already came the closest you'll ever come to righting your wrongs? You can't take back a sin that was already committed, and there will always be a price. Maybe you and Alphonse aren't meant to be together again."

Edward just stared at him.

"For all your temper has quieted down, you haven't lost your arrogance, Fullmetal. You're an adult now, maybe it's time to face the fact that no matter how badly you want something, there are things that will always be impossible."

His eyes widened in shock. "Why are you saying this?" he demanded, sitting forward on the train's hard seat..

"Because it's equivalent trade," Roy continued evenly, and what was with calling him Fullmetal? How many times did he have to remind the man that he was no longer military? "You traded your own life for your brother's, and he traded his for yours-"

Ed was shaking his head fiercely. "No, no, no!" he interrupted. "He _didn't._ I _thought_ I was giving my life for his, I _wanted _to give my life for his, but that's not how it works! I performed a human transmutation, a real human transmutation, and I was completely successful, _and _I crossed to the other side of the gate. One was not a direct result of the other. There was no equivalent exchange," he insisted.

"You're an alchemist," Roy protested. "you know the laws, you quote them all the time, how can you ignore them like that?"

Ed snorted. "Because equivalent trade is a bunch of bullshit, that's why," he said sharply, rolling his eyes.

Roy gaped. "Ed! How can you say that? You, of all people? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

He nodded solemnly. "I know it's dangerous, but it's not impossible. If equivalent trade was real, I would have been dead, Roy, but I wasn't."

Roy swallowed. "You said you were in a place where there was no alchemy. The place that fuels alchemic reactions." He looked away. "How do you know you weren't in some kind of after life?" he asked quietly.

"Because I was _alive!_" Ed sputtered. "I was very much alive, I felt pain, I felt love, I felt loss, and I felt happiness. My soul wasn't floating around in some mythical afterlife; I was trapped in a whole other _world." _He glared at the older man. "Do you doubt me?" he snapped. "Do you think I don't know where I was? Do you think I don't know what I'm talking about?"

Roy opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted almost immediately.

"I've been places no one in this world has ever seen. I've had knowledge crammed into my brain that no one human should ever possess. _I've seen the gates of Truth, Roy,_" he said, leaning forward, his eyes burning with the fire that had fueled him through his loneliness in that other place, and his loneliness in this one. "I know things no other alchemist could ever conceive of." He stood in the swaying train compartment, his eyes darkening and his expression frightening. "Don't you dare tell me what is and is not possible!" he raged, a terrifying sight to behold. Then, as quickly as he stood he slumped back down. "Don't you tell me it can't be done," he muttered, not looking at him. "Don't you tell me we can't be together. I couldn't live with myself-" his words caught in his throat, and he dropped his head onto his hand. "I'm not going back there," he whispered, and there was no comfort Roy could offer that would seem sincere enough, so he simply sat, across from the man who had been a stubborn boy who stormed into his office so long ago, and watched.

* * *

Edward was leaning back in the corner of the couch, his right leg bent with his knee leaning against the back cushions and his left one hanging over the edge. He looked up when he saw her enter the room, and tipped his head, looking at her through warm gold eyes. "Hey," he said softly, taking in the sight of her. He patted the space between his legs. "Come sit here," he directed.

Wordlessly, she crossed the room and sat down in front of him, leaning back hesitantly against his chest. Cautiously, she took his left hand in hers, and whispered, "Do you want to feel the baby?" She didn't see him nod, but she could feel the motion against her shoulder, and she placed his warm hand on her stomach, moving it around under her own until she found what she wanted him to feel. "There," she said quietly, pressing his hand into her skin. "Feel that?"

Something inside her moved, and he whispered, "Wow." He kept his flesh hand on her belly, imagining what the creature inside must look like. Did it have a human shape yet, or did it still have that odd sea-creature look he had seen in biology texts? "Winry," he said softly, his voice almost plaintive. "What are we going to tell Al? Do you think he'll ever forgive us?"

She was silent for several minutes, simply breathing in and out, and feeling his own breathing against her back. "Was there someone else in that place you were? In Germany?" she asked finally.

She felt him stiffen, and sit up a little straighter against the arm of the couch. "What?" came the response.

"That's why you felt bad about what we did, isn't it?"

"I guess so," he admitted cautiously. But Winry, why didn't _you_ feel bad, he asked in his mind, for the thousandth time.

"Did you love her?" was her next question, and the words hung in the air around them.

Ed rubbed at his face with his flesh hand. "Him," he said quietly, feeling his face flush and his stomach seize up, suddenly anxious about her response. His heart flooded with gratitude when she did show even an inkling of an outward reaction, be it surprise or disgust or jealousy, or whatever he had been expecting. "And yes. I did love him."

"Do you miss him?"

He sighed. "Of course I miss him. I wish I could have said good bye."

"Do you want to go back there?"

"No," he said, a little too quickly. "No," he repeated. "I want to be here, in the world I was born in, with Al. And I'm going to be. I'm going to do it, Winry, I'm going to get him back."

"Did you think about me when you were gone?"

"Yeah. I thought about you a lot," he said honestly. _I thought about you the whole time I was being fitted for a wooden arm and leg, being told I was lucky and that they were the most advanced prostheses available,_ he almost said, but she was more to him than just the person who made his automail. He couldn't see her face, because her back was to him, and perhaps it made it easier to talk that way. "I thought about you when I was lonely, and missing my home, when it hurt too much to think about Al. It never hurt me to think about you, to miss you," he admitted, pressing his chin into the place where her neck met her shoulder.

"Al knows," she said, her voice wistful, "how much I missed you. He could always tell when I was thinking about you. He always knew when I was looking at him and seeing you. But it would break his heart if he knew I was in love with you all along."

He gave her a push, harder than he meant to, holding her away from him. "_What?_" he sputtered, wide eyed. She turned around to face him, her expression hurt, and he felt his stomach twist. "Winry, you couldn't have been in love with me," he protested. "You hardly saw me! I was hardly ever around!"

"I know," she said quietly, looking down at her lap. "That's what made it so terrible."

"But you didn't even know me! You knew me as a little kid! After Al and I left to find the Philosopher's Stone-"

"I still knew who you were, Edward," she said sternly. "I haven't seen you for six years and I still know who you are now." Her voice sounded pained, and he felt the guilt well up inside him. "I know things about you few people can rival," she pressed on. "I know what you did, attempting forbidden alchemy, and still, I loved you. I know your body better than anyone else, in any world, even your lover in that place, who ever he may have been. I know you love your brother more than anything under the sun, including yourself, which is a pretty high place because you're the most self centered person I know, and still, I loved you. Don't you talk to me like I don't know my own heart."

He was afraid she would start crying, but she didn't, she simply sat on the couch, facing him but not looking at him.

"Winry," he began uncertainly, "You know you can love someone without being _in_ love with them…" he faltered when he saw her raise her eyes witheringly.

"I don't want this baby," she said, her voice cold.

He stared at her. "What do you mean, you don't want it?"

"Every time I see it I'll be reminded of how much we hurt Alphonse," _how much _you _hurt Al, _he thought darkly, "and of how much of my life I wasted loving you," she said, a bitter edge creeping into her voice. "That's the last thing I want."

"But- it's a _life_," he said, his brows creasing. "It's like… a fresh start, a second chance-"

"No it's not," she said sharply. "This baby is going to come into the world to one parent who doesn't want it and one parent who won't stick around, and one very clueless boy who won't even think to ask whether or not he's the father."

His eyes widened. "You still believe that?" he said incredulously. "You really think I won't stick around? Don't say you don't want this baby, Winry, you don't mean that, you're just angry with me-" he turned away "-and I guess you have every right to be, I'm sure you think I've been a jerk, but _I_ want it, or him, or her, or whatever it turns out to be. Besides," he added, forever the untactful, "you're huge. I don't think you can get out of having it now."

She glared at him. "Edward, you are the most unromantic, unsympathetic-"

"I know," he interrupted dryly, before he could be subjected to the rest of her list. "Sorry about that. But don't say I won't stick around, 'cause I will," he insisted. He put his hand on her shoulder, slowly coaxing her back to the space between his legs, where she sat stiffly, not facing him. "Let's stop fighting. Maybe the baby can hear us or something," he pleaded.

She let herself lean back against him, suddenly exhausted again. Life had somehow taken all daydreams and jumbled them all together with a worlds worth of guilt and thrown them out into reality, and it was about to tackle another one.

"Don't think I don't love you," he mumbled behind her, his arms resting on her hips. "I do, I always have. Just don't ask me in what way, because I don't know any more. I don't know anything anymore."


	30. Finding the Catch: Final Suspicion

_**Yuugiamythest:** Wordy is fine, just expect a wordy response, cause I like words :P I like Winry as a character, but sometimes people who are fundamentally good can do less-than-good things. I guess in my head I feel like when Winry slept with Ed the night he came home (and she totally initiated it, and it never would have progressed without her actively participating, because Ed had not a clue what he was doing) she realized that she did it because she'd been in love with Ed all along, and so it didn't seem wrong to her until afterwards. She's trying to come to terms with the fact she's been denying for the past two years: she's dating the wrong brother. And its hard for her because Al is such a wonderful person, and, like you said, loves her so much. She's being really blunt, and less than kind, when she says Al is "a clueless boy who wouldn't even think to ask who the father is," because she's angry, and she's scared, which is no excuse really but it is a reason, and it's also the truth. As for more Al and AlH interaction, here ya go, enjoy that!_

_**KristalChan: **Well, like Ed said, she is "about to burst," so she's having the baby whether she wants it or not. And Ed wants it, so as long as he's around when it's born, everything will be okay. As long as he's around #whistles innocently#_

_**Camudekyu: **perfection? O.o #dies#_

* * *

**Finding the Catch: Final Suspicion**

He recognized the sound he heard on the other side of the door, even though he had never heard it coming from anyone but himself before. It was the sound of himself crying. Edward's little brother was crying in the bedroom with the door locked. "Al?" he called softly through the door.

"Go away," came the choked response.

"What's the matter?" he tried, immediately feeling ridiculous. What wasn't the matter?

"I hate your world."

Alphonse sighed. "Please let me in," he said through the door. "It's my room too."

After a bit of shuffling, the younger boy opened the door. He had the red coat drawn around his shoulders, and his eyes were red from tears. "Sorry. I didn't mean to lock you out," he said, looking down. "But I don't want to talk," he added, always polite.

"Hey," he said softly, putting what he hoped was a comforting arm around his double, the way Edward had done for him so many times. "You don't have to talk about it," he told him. "But you don't have to cry alone, either."

Al wiped his eyes. The assurance that he did not have to talk only encouraged him to say more than he intended. "I feel like I've spent my entire life missing my brother," he said quietly, leaning into the older boy. "I haven't seen him since I was ten, and when I think of him, I think of him as being a kid, being eleven. I don't even know what he looks like anymore. I feel like I'm losing him."

Alphonse considered this for a minute. "He looks like you," he told him finally. "He's shorter, of course," he added, and the younger boy nodded. His brother's lack of height had been almost legendary. "His hair is lighter, and his eyes… I'm sure his eyes look exactly the way you remember them. Yellow, like gold. Never seen anyone with eyes like your brother's." He sighed, debating whether or not to speak the next sentence at all. He didn't want Al to think he was making light of his situation, or that he was saying it wasn't so bad. Still… he could relate, and not only because Al was, well, Al was him in a way, wasn't he? "I lost my older brother in the Great War," he said softly. "Just like you, I haven't seen him since I was ten. He died, I think, when he was sixteen, and I hadn't seen him for four years, I didn't even know where he was. And I didn't even know he had died until the war was over. Sometimes I wonder, if he were alive today, if I would even recognize him." He took a deep breath. "I like to think that I would, because he's my brother, but I don't know for certain."

_But didn't he look like Edward?_ Al wanted to ask, but didn't, not knowing what kind of pain his question might cause. Was it possible that the Alphonse of Munich didn't realize that Ed was his brother's double, just like he was his own? Perhaps, he thought, part of him knows, but he just doesn't want to admit it. "This world isn't fair," he said instead, his eyes sad. "I don't understand how anything works here. Your laws of science don't explain anything."

Alphonse frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I said I would give anything to see my brother again, and I did, I gave everything, my entire life- I'm here, in this world where I don't belong and I have nothing, no home, no family, nothing to call my own and everyone at home probably thinks I'm dead." His eyes flashed with something like anger, and he swiped the pile of Ed's old alchemy notes off the desk in a sudden fury. "I said I would give anything to see my brother again," he repeated darkly. "I gave everything and got nothing! All I have are the same things I had back home, his notes, his books, his clothes, but not _him._ What the _hell _kind of Equivalent Trade is that?"

Alphonse Heiderich thought to himself that it had in fact been an exact trade. The brothers had simply switched places. Edward was back in his own world and now it was his younger brother who was stranded here in Germany. "It's like a chemical equation," he said slowly, with difficulty. "You can't just move an element to the other side, there has to be an equal exchange or the equation becomes unbalanced and doesn't work."

The younger boy shook his head fiercely. "You can't apply your laws of chemistry to this," he insisted. "They'd fall apart in an instant. According to your theories," –laws, the older Alphonse corrected in his mind- "You and I are opposite elements. We're on the same side of the equation, so according to you we should cancel each other out, but we don't, we're still here, both of us, talking." He shuddered at the thought of being 'cancelled out,' and drew the red coat around himself tightly. "The fact that we both exist on the same side of the gate-" he shook his head "-what can explain that? Your laws say it's impossible."

"Who says we're opposite elements? Just because it seems that way-" he stopped, feeling foolish. "Look, this is ridiculous, we're talking about stuff we don't understand," he said.

Al tipped his head, fixing his grey eyes on his double's blue ones. "Don't you?" he asked. "Don't you understand what my brother was doing?"

"What was he doing?"

"Come on," Al pressed. "Think. Why did you want to go into space? You want to be famous. Why did Ed want to go into space?"

"He was a scientist- he had a theory about ethers…" he trailed off, his hand coming to cover his mouth. "He thought he could get home," he breathed. "He believed that nonsense about other dimensions…"

Al was nodding patiently. "Except now you know it isn't nonsense," he reminded him.

"He didn't tell me," Alphonse said slowly, "not to go up. We were going up together, we were always going to go together."

Al shook his head. "He was going to go himself. Otherwise you would have been dragged into our world too. He just didn't tell you, he probably knew there was no way you would agree not to go."

"He didn't tell me," his brother's lover agreed. "But if he had, I would have wanted to go with him. We really were going to go together."

"You don't mean that," the younger boy protested. "Think about what you're saying. This is your world, this is where you belong. Don't you have a life here? Don't you have a family that will miss you?"

"I-"

"If you leave, you'll never get that recognition you wanted. You've worked for how long on this rocket? Your entire adult life, right? It will all be for nothing. No one in my world will know anything about it, and you won't be able to tell them."

"Edward is there. It wouldn't be for nothing," Alphonse said firmly.

"But you don't _belong_ there!" the younger boy insisted. "And you can _never_ come back. You have a family here!" he cried, that awful look in his eyes, the one Ed always had when he talked about his mother. "You love them, and they love you. Right?"

Alphonse nodded slowly. He did love his family, or what was left of it. Did he really want to never see his mother and father again? Did he really want to never see his homeland again? He loved Edward, but-

"It's different, you see," Al was saying darkly. "A family isn't something you can replace."

"Your brother isn't someone I can replace either!" he protested.

"But you can't leave your _family,_" he repeated. "This is your _home_!"

Alphonse shook his head. "We were going to go up together. We were never planning anything different. Your brother must have wanted me to come with him," he said firmly. "Maybe he was even going to tell me everything, eventually." He felt that same stab of hurt that Edward had been hiding things from him all this time.

Al's face softened. "My brother doesn't lie to people he loves," he said quietly. "The only reason he didn't tell you everything is because you would never have believed him."

"He never actually lied," Alphonse said, in Ed's defense. "He just… didn't tell the truth."

Al nodded. "Brother was always good at that," he agreed. "Look," he said slowly, "I like you, Alphonse-" he would never get over how weird it felt to address _himself _"-and I feel like you know Ed even better than I do, if you've spent so many years together. Maybe he did want you to come with him, I don't know." He took a deep breath. "If you want to come, I wont stop you. But understand this: you can never come back here. You can never come home."


	31. Finding the Catch: Repetition

_**KristalChan:** Ending soon? Well, ending soon in this fic, but never in my head, so expect more! Actually I've got both a sequel and a prequel in the works. I'll prolly start posting them before they're actually completed, so I guess you can't count on an update every few days, but I'm also shooting for longer chapters, so we shall see. Keep an eye out for 'em, not sure which one I'll start with first, or if ill just work on and post them both simultaneously. _

_**Yuugiamythest: **I know I said wordiness for wordiness, but I cant really reply to any of your speculations for fear of spoiling the ending. Let's see… there's a bit of Riza in this chapter and her and Roy will be around quite a bit in the chapters to come. There's five more after this one, and then… all (most?) of your speculations will be answered! Oh and as for the 100+ reviews, hey, I couldn't have done it without you! And with rating the fic M… I did that cause there's some non-graphic sex scenes ( said graphic scenes are not allowed, so I was trying to err on the side of caution since im new to the whole thing) but do you in all your wordiness think that it was an accurate rating? Or could it have been T? I meant the story to include a few sexy details, but that's hard to do if nothing graphic is allowed… bah im babbling now. Sorry. _

_**Spork111: **now THERE'S a good sequel idea!_

* * *

**Finding the Catch: Repetition**

She awoke in a sweat from what she was sure had been a nightmare, but when she tried to sit up in bed her abdomen screamed in pain. _Already?_ She stumbled into Al's bedroom in the dark, calling, "Ed?" but there was no response. _Probably downstairs reading or something, _she thought, and groaned, feeling dizzy. The inside of her legs were wet with something sticky, had her water broke while she was sleeping? Was that the way it was supposed to happen?

Slowly she made her way down the steps, realizing that there were no lights on downstairs either, and the couch was empty. She flicked on the light in the kitchen and snatched the piece of paper off the table. _Back soon, Love Ed? _She snarled. Back from where? "I need you now!" she groaned, sinking to her knees as another wave of pain hit her. "Edward!" she screamed to the empty house. "Where the hell are you?" _Okay then,_ she told herself, _you're going to have to do this alone, just like he promised you wouldn't. _

She braced herself, and stood up again, thinking hard. _A hospital. _She couldn't give birth all alone, so she would have to go to a hospital. She had been born in her parent's house in Rizembool, just like Ed and Al had been born in theirs, surrounded by the people who loved them, but she was alone, and her baby would be born in a hospital, surrounded by strangers. _Edward, I hate you! _Altenburg was small, the town didn't have a hospital, but Dillon did, and didn't General Hawkeye say that's where she was working? She stumbled back into the living room, turning on a lamp and grabbing her purse, fishing for the phone number. It was nearly two am, would anyone even be there to answer the phone? What number was this, anyway, the number to the whole base, to her office, or what? She dialed with shaking fingers, and counted six rings, her heart pounding in her chest. On the seventh ring a voice answered, it was a man, asking for some kind of code. "I need to speak to General Hawkeye," she said hurriedly. "Please, it's very important."

"The General isn't available right now," the voice drawled, "would you like to leave a message?"

"No!" she nearly spat into the phone. "I can't leave her a message, I need to talk to her right now!"

"Do you have the code?" came the patient voice.

"No, I don't have a code!"

"Then the General isn't available right now," the man repeated. "I'm sorry. You can leave a message-"

"Look, buddy," she said sharply, "this isn't military, I don't need a code. This is personal, and it's an emergency!"

"If it is an emergency," said the infuriating voice, "then you need an emergency code."

"Why you-" she flipped the card over in her hand and rattled off the string of numbers and heard a dial tone. She thought she had been hung up on when another man's voice came on the line, sounding bleary, as if he had been sleeping. "This is Lieutenant Hanson, what is the problem?"

"I need to talk to Riza Hawkeye right now!" she screamed into the phone.

"Who is this?"

"This is Winry Rockbell and I'm having a baby right now and you'd better put her on the phone or I'll-"

"Calm down." It was Riza's voice, thank god, she thought, as she leaned into the wall.

"You said to call if I needed anything," she said weakly. "I need to get to a hospital."

"Are you in Altenburg?"

"Yes."

"I have some troops stationed there on routine business, I'll radio them to send a car for you and Edward. Everything is going to be okay."

"Edward isn't here," she snarled, clutching the phone so tightly her knuckles were white. "I'm all alone."

"Not there?" came the response. "Where did he go?"

"Damned if I know."

The phone crackled once, and Winry didn't hear Riza's next sentence. "There will be a car in just a few minutes," she told her. "Hang on, everything is going to be fine."

_I'll never forgive you for this, _she thought to herself, sitting in the back of a stranger's car, going to a strange hospital in a strange town. Maybe it would be punishment enough, she thought cruelly, when he realized he had become exactly like his father.

Before she knew it the car was pulling up to the hospital in Dillon, and Riza was waiting outside for her, dressing in civilian clothes. "It's okay, Winry," she said comfortingly, helping her from the car. "You're not alone here. I thought you weren't due for another three weeks?"

She gritted her teeth. "I guess the baby couldn't wait," she said, clutching her stomach. The ground spun beneath her and she stared at the blood that was for some reason pooling between her feet.

Hawkeye's face was white and her voice betrayed her panic, even though she said, "It's okay. Everything is going to be fine."


	32. Finding the Catch: TO Become a God

_**Everyone:** Thank you so much for all the reviews. Please enjoy this chapter, although you will still have to wait for all those questions to be answered._

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**Finding the Catch: To Become a God**

Perfect.

That array was of neither his nor Alphonse's making, could have existed for hundreds of years, even. And whatever Alphonse had thought it was, Edward was certain he knew the truth: it was the array that called up the Gate. His younger brother hadn't made a mistake when he activated the array, he simply didn't know what it truly was.

And it was perfect.

Edward was calm, finally at peace with himself. Finally, after fifteen years, the great weight would be lifted from his shoulders. Finally, Alphonse would be in his rightful world, in his rightful form, and all would continue as it should be, even if it meant continuing without him.

Perfect.

He looked up at the sky, savoring this calm that had flooded over him. Was this heaven? Was this forgiveness, this incredible lightness that he felt? Should he stand here like this, on this foreign array, so that his final memory could last just a little longer?

It was a blue sky, soaring above the ancient temple, the blazing sun low on the horizon of the desert. It would turn cold soon, when the sun finally sank, but he would not notice.

He sighed, breathing out (would this be his final breath?) and clapped his hands. As he felt the energy rush up under him, part of him wanted to offer up a prayer _please, please let it work,_ but to whom would he pray? What did God do, all day long, if not make sure that all was well with his world? His body strained with the alchemical current, and he held his concentration, _do not lose your own world_, he told himself firmly, _not until you know you have what you came for._

_Look your last,_ said a voice, one that chilled him when he recalled when he had heard it last. _Look your last on that which you have lost._

He had been lying to himself, and the admission flooded though him unchecked; he was unable to devote any energy to deceiving himself any longer. All alchemy came at a cost. Everything came at a cost. That was the one truth of the world _no. He did not believe that, he had seen the Gates, and knew the real truth of the world. He did not believe in Equivalent Trade, and therefore Equivalent Trade did not exist._

_Tch, such arrogance, _came the voice of the Gate, resonating through him, in the air around him, in the violet crackles of energy flying past him. _Who do you think you are? God? Just because you believe something doesn't make it true, human. You tell yourself you love people, but how can you love them if you hurt them so?_

"I want to make things right!" he cried, his eyes squeezed shut, his arms flung out.

_What do you know of what is right? _Laughter echoed around him. _Isn't it God's place to decide what's meant to be?_

He was a child, playing by the river with Winry while his mother held his baby brother in her arms, sitting in the shade of the tree. Winry's mother joined her shortly, cooing over the baby in her arms. "Edward looks so much like his father, but the baby looks exactly like you, Trisha."

He was a boy, balancing on a fence, Alphonse close behind, arms outstretched for balance, tottering precariously.

His mother's hand went limp in his, and his mind clouded with rage that her last thought had been not of him and Alphonse but of their bastard betraying father.

A splatter of blood, such a strange shape for a little girl, almost as if it had been a dog, and not a girl at all. It had been raining, and the chill soaked through his skin into his bones, making his shoulder ache. "Little brother" she had called him, and he could not be angry over it because she had been so innocent, so adorable, it had been wrong for her to die, and it had been wrong for her to be in the form she was trapped in. Wrong, and he couldn't make it right.

That misshapen thing, that thing that had his mother's hair and no body, only a jumble of mismatched muscles and bones, and a horrible, putrid stink, it was the old nightmare, _Edward, why couldn't you make me right?_

"Take care of each other," and it had been his mother's voice, his mother's face, and did the thing even have his mother's memories? He had to destroy her, he _had_ to, he had to give back everything he had taken in order to get back what he wanted. The image of his mother faded away, into gas, into air, gone, nothing.

"My son," came the choked voice, gurgling with blood. Edward clutched those broad shoulders desperately, shaking his head, this couldn't be happening. "You will find your own way in life," his father whispered, and his eyes remained open, but no more words would come.

"Father!" he screamed, hearing his own voice tear from his throat but not knowing if it was a memory or if it was real.

A mother and a daughter, both who had been very kind to him, treated him like family, stood over the grave of a man who had been killed by a creature of his father's own creation.

Alphonse, Alphonse when he was nineteen, in a pub in Munich, laughing and shoving a warm glass of beer at him, Alphonse, winding an arm around him and comforting him when he had nightmares, Alphonse, who had been there for him when he had no one, Alphonse who was not his brother.

You tell yourself you love people, but how can you love them if you hurt them so? 

The creature had his mother's face, his mother's voice, even his mother's _memories…_

"Son," said his father, standing over his hospital bed in London, "I understand if you will never forgive me-"

"I wont," was his sour response.

Those familiar arms around him, and he cursed himself for taking comfort in a lie, this Alphonse was not his brother. "I love you Ed," came his friend's soft voice. They lay, stretched across the bed, letting the cool breeze from the open window pass over their bare skin. Edward choked on his reply.

He felt himself inside of her, the two of them tangled in sheets, the orange of the setting sun piercing through the room. She cried his name. He squeezed his eyes shut.

That horrible, hulking, menacing suit of armor, so unlike what it contained: the soul of a gentle, innocent boy whose life had been destroyed by his arrogant, selfish older brother-

"I don't want to be like this any more," the young voice echoed from inside the suit. "Brother, I want to feel things again, I want to feel you, feel your warmth-"

It was his note. The one he had scribbled in the early morning, before she woke up. "Back soon, Love Ed," he had scrawled.

_Could a god lie?_


	33. Into the Heavens

_**Spork111: **confused eh? well lets see. you know how they say that when you die your whole life flashes before your eyes?_

_**Yuugiamythest: **thanks so much. 32 is one of my favorite chapters too. enjoy this one, your questions will begin to be answered._

_**KristalChan:** 0.o you're reading fanfic at school? tsk tsk, dont get caught, i would feel bad! (thanks for the reveiw!)_**

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**

Into the Heavens

Suddenly there was no rocket, and Alphonse felt a heaviness settle over his soul. He was dead. It didn't matter any more, nothing mattered, the rocket would crash and his research would all have been for nothing, Germany would gain nothing and no one would remember his name, but it didn't matter because he was dead now. He was surrounded by empty whiteness, but was seized by the sensation that he was rushing towards something. Suddenly he stood in front of a Gate.

_The gates of heaven, or the gates of hell?_ Alphonse had never been very religious, but he had learned the same thing that every child growing up in Germany had learned: if you lead a good life, you will go to heaven. Had he lead a good life? _It doesn't matter._ The thought echoed through his mind, and he felt vaguely that it _should _matter and wondered why it didn't.

Now that he stood before these gates, once they opened would he be able to ask God all the answers in the universe? Would he finally understand everything his small human brain could not conceive of? Would he gain all the knowledge he had spent his life chasing after?

The doors were dark and terrible, not made of gold or pearl or anything described in the bible and covered in symbols he had never seen before. Was he supposed to open them? Or would they open for him? He reached his hand out slowly.

"Don't."

The voice came from behind him, and he whirled around, his back now to the gate.

The figure was faded, fading, obscured by the blinding whiteness that surrounded them. Alphonse stepped closer. Could it be? "_Brother?_"

Short blond hair, so similar to his own, and large, honey-brown eyes; a face he hadn't seen in fifteen years.

"Al, go back." It was his brother's voice, his brother who had died in London long ago, come to meet him at the gates of heaven. Alphonse rushed towards him, and was shocked to find that although he appeared transparent he felt solid when he wrapped his arms around him. "Go back," he repeated; the voice was the same but the face was changing, becoming thinner, eyes appearing more gold than brown.

"Ed?" In this non-space, this non-existence he realized suddenly that it wasn't his form that he recognized. It was his soul. The figure changed again, becoming a little boy with unruly blond hair and a scraped knee, and when Al tipped his head he changed again to an older man with a ponytail and a beard. _Edward and his brother were the same soul._ Of this he was more sure than of anything he had ever learned in his lifetime. The ramifications send his mind reeling, and he felt as if the non-ground had dropped out from under him.

"It's okay, Al," Edward said, holding him gently by the arms. "You can go back. You don't have to die."

"But-" he started to protest, but Ed shook his head.

"Don't believe in equivalent trade."

The switch was immediate, as if he had never stood before the gate at all. He didn't even remember opening his eyes.

"Alphonse? Alphonse, stay with us," a voice was directing him sharply. A doctor. He was fussing over him, moving things around, issuing orders to a nurse. "We're preparing you for surgery, everything is going to be all right," he was told swiftly.

"The rocket…" he said weakly, trying to focus his eyes on something, anything.

"You crash landed, you're lucky to be alive," the doctor told him.

"Where's Alphonse?" he asked suddenly.

"You're Alphonse," the doctor said, pausing for a moment, frowning.

"The other Alphonse," he pressed. "He was in the rocket with me."

"You were alone," came the response. "There was no one else. Only you. And it's a miracle you survived."


	34. All That Is Lost

_**MusicalRileyChan:** don't be confused! Here, I shall provide you with an ultra quick explanation for part two: Ed and Al E have switched places. Al E is in Germany with Al H, and Ed is in Amestris with Winry. Er, up until now, that is :P _

_**KristalChan:** is Ed alive? Hmmmm. Do you believe he can open the gates without sacrificing anything? Does Ed believe he can open the gates without sacrificing anything?_

_**Animefan127: **I hope Ed will be there too..._

_**Yuugiamythest: **Here is some Roy/Riza just for you. Don't kill me…_

_**ShadedRouge: **oh sorry, didn't mean to confuse! Al H and Al E built the rocket, and went up into space, and then the rocket crashed. But before it crashed, it flew into the Gates of Truth, only Al H, not knowing anything about alchemy, figured they were the gates of heaven. Ed is there cause Ed was in the middle of performing a transmutation to open the gates so his brother could return home, and he sent Al H back because (hmmm actually more on exactly why he did that later). Keep reading?_

_**Eleventy-Nine: **Thanks so much for recognizing how much thought went into this. It literally consumed me. _

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**All That is Lost**

He stared for a moment before knocking. She looked pale, deathly pale and grey, but she was alive and smiling gently down at the bundle in her arms. He rapped his knuckles softly on the door frame, and her large blue eyes swung up to meet his.

"Anything?" she asked softly.

He crossed the room, taking the chair by the window and pulling it towards the bed. "Did you name her, Miss Rockbell?" he asked, equally soft.

She shook her head, looking back down at the baby.

"I heard the delivery was very long," he said hesitantly, wanting to offer his sympathies but not certain how.

"I was drugged through most of it," she answered, not looking up. "So I don't remember how long it was."

He sat, quietly, staring at the tiny form. Her face was red and wrinkly, her eyes were closed into mere slits in that miniature face, and her fingers were curled in on themselves. Winry tugged the little hat down a bit further on the baby's forehead, and traced the soft cheek with her finger. Was this really Fullmetal's child?

"General Mustang," she said, softly, her voice pleading. "Did you find anything?"

He sighed. He could not bring himself to withhold the truth from her. "Intelligence says Edward was spotted by several people in the train station in Central. The ticket master sold him a round trip to East City."

Her jaw dropped. "A round trip?" she echoed.

He nodded. "Contacts in East City say he took the desert-rail as far as it ran, and that he walked from there."

Her reddened eyes grew wide. "He didn't," she breathed.

He rubbed his hand over his face and through his hair. She looked so weak and drained, he wished there was a shred of hope he could give her. The fact that Ed had purchased a round trip ticket would have to be enough, he told himself grimly. "I've had my people and Riza's people searching all over Ishbal, including the abandoned temple where Alphonse found the array." He took a breath. "There was nothing."

"Oh." It came out as a whisper. She glanced back down at the baby, warm against her chest. "Would you like to hold her?" she offered hesitantly.

Roy stiffened. "Babies don't like me," he said in half-protest, but held out his arms anyway and let her place the newborn in them.

"Hold her head," Winry directed him, and he shifted his hand to cradle the back of the soft head, feeling the barely-there traces of baby hair.

He leaned back, holding the baby and thinking suddenly of Riza, and how they had talked often, jokingly, about what their offspring might look like. Roy had always ended these discussions on a serious note, saying he didn't want to have children.

What a fool he had been then.

Riza had met him for lunch, seeming nervous, distracted, so unlike her usual self, but he never could have guessed the reason. He had been floored when she had told him she was pregnant. And everything that was the wrong thing to say, he said. He told her it was her fault, that she should have been more careful, and refused to listen to her logic that they were equally responsible. He also refused to entertain the notion of raising a child together, dismissing it as impossible, he could never be a father, and besides what would become of her career? She had stormed out, and had refused to speak to him, not even just to hear his apology. Work became impossible with his second in command seething with anger at his very presence, and he put in for his accumulated vacation days, figuring he would use the time to sort things out, decide what to do, how to make it up to her and how to deal with having a family. "She's so tiny," he said quietly, afraid even the slightest movement would jar her from her sleep.

"She was three weeks early," Winry told him, "but she's getting bigger, she's already gained six ounces."

Riza would not hear of it. She put in for a transfer back to East City, and was gone. He kept tabs on her, of course, and followed her rising career. All the information he gathered on her did not include the birth of the baby. If it had been a false alarm, he had hurt her too badly to be forgiven. If she had miscarried, she had miscarried alone. And if she had ended it herself, and he shuddered at the thought, then his stupidity had cost him his only child.

The baby in his arms began to stir, and a sleepy cry issued from those tiny lips. She waved her fists in the air, gearing up for a real cry, and Roy looked nervously at Winry. "Do you want her back?" he asked, holding the baby out to her.

She chuckled softly. "Just rock her," she instructed. "She'll quiet down."

Just then the baby erupted in a full on cry, her face becoming redder, and Roy rocked her dutifully back and forth. "Hey," he said softly, "Don't cry, no reason to cry, come on, stop that, you want me to give you back to mommy?" He looked at Winry pleadingly. "I think she wants her mommy," he said pointedly.

She smiled up at him from the bed, taking in the sight of the stern man in the blue uniform and eye patch who had been the terror of Ed and Al's teenage years. _That Bastard Colonel_, Ed had called him. _Brother, don't say that,_ Al had admonished, _he's been very helpful to us._

When Roy looked up he felt his heart clench. In the doorway stood another blue uniform, the very picture of the woman he had fallen in love with, when had it been, actually? Ages ago, he told himself. Long before he had ever admitted it. Riza walked over to him, taking the screaming baby from his arms, and rocked her soothingly back and forth, so much more naturally than Roy's own stiff attempt. The screams became choked little bursts, until the baby became calm again, her little brow uncreasing and her eyes opening.

_Your chance is gone,_ he told himself ruefully. _Her chance is gone._ She had never been involved with anyone before him, he knew this because he had her thoroughly investigated when he took her on as his subordinate. She presented to him the utmost challenge: to catch the uncatchable. She had been involved with no one since, and he knew this because he had her thoroughly investigated every few months since she left him. If he believed in the sentiment that there was one person out there for everyone, then he believed he had found that person, and lost her, and was destined to be alone as payment for his sins against her.

"Oh, Winry," Riza breathed, her rich brown eyes glowing with maternal affection. She would have made a wonderful mother. Stern, but loving. Caring yet strict. All the things he could never do, she would be there to take over. "She looks just like Alphonse!" she exclaimed.

Both Generals flinched when they saw the pain flash behind the woman's eyes, and Winry held out her arms for the baby. "Really?" she asked, trying to sound normal, pulling her child in close. "I think she looks like me."


	35. ReWeighting the Scales

_**KristalChan and Camudekyu**: thanks for reviewing. You realize, of course, that Ed and Al look a lot alike as it is. The baby could very well look like both of them. Also, as far as I know, I don't think DNA testing exists in the FMA universe. So… yeah. _

_**Yuugiamythest: **The angst ridden fun IS the will of the authoress…_

_**Abstractication:** thanks for the semi-review, I appreciate it as always. Nice to hear from you again. _

_**ShadedRouge and CharriXD**: don't die of suspense yet, we're almost there. Thanks for reading and reviewing._

_**Eleventy-Nine: **thank you for your words of praise, such things always make me feel so good! However, they are not the reason I dedicate this chapter to you… You were listening to John Lennon while reading this. It must have been fate. Either that or we are psychically linked. One of the two._

_**Note: **The lyrics that appear at the end of this chapter are the inspiration for this entire story. They are from the Beatles song "In My Life," written by John Lennon and Paul McCarthy. Enjoy._

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**Re-weighting the Scales**

The voice was gone. Everything was white. Edward recognized this place.

Alphonse stood before him, and his heart soared. _This was his brother!_ Not his double that he had befriended in Germany, but Alphonse Elric, his bronze ponytail draped over his shoulder and his wide grey eyes looking unblinkingly into Edward's.

They were nearly touching.

"Do- do you remember me?" he asked hesitantly, hearing his own voice echo in the nothingness that surrounded them.

"Of course," Alphonse breathed. "Of course I remember you. Brother." It was Alphonse who threw his arms around Ed, drawing him to his chest in the embrace he had longed for since he was ten years old, for more years than he could remember, and in the vast expanse of emptiness he could feel his brother's heart beating in time with his own. "Have you been in the gate all this time?" he asked, speaking to the top of his brother's head, not wanting to let go of him enough to look him in the eyes.

Edward shook his head. "I came to get you… you haven't been here all this time, have you?" he asked, pulling away slightly and looking up at him.

"No, I was… I was in another place, with another me…"

"Alphonse built his rocket," Edward said softly, and his brother nodded. "You're so tall, Al," he said fondly, taking in the sight of him. A perfect transmutation.

"And you're so old," Alphonse answered, and Ed looked like he was about to laugh until he squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his face into his brother's shoulder and grasping him tightly with his flesh hand.

"I missed you so much, Al, I was so afraid-" here his voice broke "-I was so afraid the transmutation didn't work, that you were gone, and I'd never know, that I'd never get to tell you how sorry I am- I ruined your entire life-"

A warm hand came up to stroke the back of his head, soothing. "Don't say that, brother," Alphonse said swiftly. "I never thought that. I never believed that for a minute."

"I'm sorry," Edward whispered again.

"Don't be sorry," his brother said to him, his voice warm in the void that surrounded them. "We're together now. Nothing can change that."

_There are places I'll remember all my life,  
Though some have changed,  
Some forever, not for better,  
Some have gone and some remain. _

All these places had their moments  
With lovers and friends I still can recall.  
Some are dead and some are living.  
In my life I've loved them all.

But of all these friends and lovers,  
There is no one compares with you,  
And these memories lose their meaning  
When I think of love as something new.

Though I know I'll never lose affection  
For people and things that went before,  
I know I'll often stop and think about them,  
In my life I'll love you more.


	36. End

**End **

It was snowing in Dillon, it had been snowing all day and all the night before. Winry stared out the window at the flakes, still not recovered enough to be discharged from the base hospital, and not really wanting to return home alone. Her daughter slept peacefully in her arms, and Winry was satisfied, for the moment, just to watch her perfect face, at peace, asleep.

She was vaguely aware of the voices in the hall, but she was too lost in thought to pay them much mind. General Hawkeye had been to visit her earlier, her time having been both cheerful and short, and leaving Winry feeling refreshed. The day before General Mustang had visited her again, which she appreciated but could not help but feel awkward.

"I'm a state alchemist, that makes me your superior," said a voice outside the door, and her head snapped up, eyes on the door. "Now you let me into my girlfriend's room, or I'll transmute the door open!"

Her eyes widened. There was a bit more commotion outside, and then her door burst open in a flash of alchemical energy, and he ran to her, not stopping when he reached the bed but climbing on next to her, wrapping his arms around her and the baby and burying his head in her breast. There was snow in his bronze hair and on his shoulders which quickly became tiny freezing droplets which soaked into her hospital gown. "Winry I missed you so much while I was in that place," said the muffled voice, and the baby began to squirm in her arms. He picked his head up, his grey eyes looking intently into hers. "We didn't know where you were, we didn't know you were in the hospital or we never would have been so long-" once he spoke to her it seemed like he could not stop the words "-you have no idea how different it is there, it's a whole other world, a whole other universe, like a mirror of this one, and-" he stopped the flurry mid sentence, simply staring at her, biting his lip and reaching up to brush long bronze bangs out of his eyes. He smiled hesitantly, shifting on the bed so that his body aligned with hers.

"I missed you too, Alphonse," she whispered, feeling tears form in the corners of her eyes.

"I didn't know," he said slowly, staring at the baby girl in her arms. "I didn't know you were pregnant, if I did I never would have left. I'm so sorry. I never guessed that I would end up trapped on the other side of the gate." He touched his finger gently across the baby's tiny knuckles, and she shook her fist in her sleep at the sensation. Then he looked up, leaning forwardto press his lips to her cheek, near her mouth, very softly. "I'm sorry I couldn't be here for you." He touched the corner of her eye, where her tears had begun to well.

"I was afraid you were never coming back," she admitted with a small, sad smile.

He reached over and gently slid his arms under the tiny bundle, lifting her from her mother and into his own embrace, leaning back on the bed pillows next to her. "Did you name her?" he asked softly.

Winry nodded. "I want to call her Kaiya," she told him,stroking a finger over one tiny eyebrowand watching her eyes flutter open.

Alphonse rocked the baby back and forth, his expression enraptured. "That's pretty."

"It means forgiveness."

Winry looked up to see Ed leaning in the doorframe, lookingsteadily over at the threesome she and Alphonse and the baby made. "That's right," she whispered.

"Brother," Al spoke up, "do you want to hold her?"

Edward hesitated for a moment before coming over to the bed, and Alphonse stood, placing the baby carefully in his brother's arms. "She's perfect, Winry," Edward said. "She's perfect."

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_**Author note: **whew! I can't believe it's over! ...except for me, things are never really over, not in my head. Check out some short preveiws for the up-and-coming novel-like epic continuation "I'll Love You More" by going here: _**www . livejournal . com / users / infinitesimi / 10770 . html**_(take out the spaces)_


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